In writing about the towers of Manhattan in a February 1913 article in this magazine, critic Montgomery Schuyler extolled the virtues of building with terra-cotta, focusing particularly on the plastic nature of the inexpensive material to create the elaborate decoration on the Woolworth Building, completed that same year.
Over a century later, terra-cotta is making a comeback on New York towers. SHoP has used it extensively to clad its 1,428-foot-tall building at 111 West 57th Street. For One Vanderbilt, another supertall currently under construction in Midtown, KPF has employed the product for the building’s prominent spandrels.
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