In 1926, William Randolph Hearst, founder of Hearst Corporation, commissioned theatrical scenic artist and architect Joseph Urban to design what was named the International Magazine Building. The six-story structure, designed by Urban and George P. Post & Sons, was completed in 1928 to house the 12 magazines Hearst owned at the time.

 

Design of the International Magazine Building took place from 1926-27, construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1928 at a cost of $2 million. It was always Hearst's intent that a tower would rise above Eighth Avenue. Between 1945-47, George B. Post & Sons made proposals for nine additional stories on the six-story base. Plans were filed in 1946, but never executed.

 

Architect

Lord Norman Foster was born in Manchester in 1935. After graduating from Manchester University School of Architecture and City Planning in 1961 he won a Henry Fellowship to Yale University, where he gained a Master's Degree in Architecture.

 

He is the founder and chairman of Foster + Partners. Established in London in 1967, it is now a worldwide practice, with project offices in more than 20 countries. Over the past four decades the company has been responsible for a strikingly wide range of work, from urban masterplans, public infrastructure, airports, civic and cultural buildings, offices and workplaces to private houses and product design. Since its inception, the practice has received more than 500 awards and citations for excellence and has won more than 86 international and national competitions.

 

Current and recent work includes the largest single building on the planet, Beijing Airport, the redevelopment of Dresden Railway Station, Millau Viaduct in France, the Swiss Re tower and the Great Court at the British Museum in London, an entire University Campus for Petronas in Malaysia, Hearst Tower in New York, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and research centres at Stanford University, California.

 

He became the 21st Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate in 1999 and was awarded the Praemium Imperiale Award for Architecture in 2002. He has been awarded the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal for Architecture (1994), the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture (1983), the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture (1991) and the International Highrise Award (2008). In 1990 he was granted a Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours, and in 1999 was honoured with a Life Peerage, becoming Lord Foster of Thames Bank.

 

History of the building from Wikipedia

The six-story base of the headquarters building was commissioned by the founder, William Randolph Hearst and awarded to the architect Joseph Urban. The building was completed in 1928 at a cost of $2 million and contained 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2). The original cast stone facade has been preserved in the new design as a designated Landmark site. Originally built as the base for a proposed skyscraper, the construction of the tower was postponed due to the Great Depression. The new tower addition was completed nearly seventy years later, and 10,000 Hearst employees moved in on 26 June 2006.[1]

 

The tower – designed by the architect Norman Foster, structurally engineered by WSP Cantor Seinuk, and constructed by Turner construction – is 46 stories tall, standing 182 meters (597 ft) with 80,000 square metres (860,000 sq ft) of office space. The uncommon triangular framing pattern (also known as a diagrid) required 9,500 metric tons (10,480 tons) of structural steel – reportedly about 20% less than a conventional steel frame. Hearst Tower was the first skyscraper to break ground in New York City after September 11, 2001. The building received the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award.[2] citing it as the best skyscraper in the world completed that year.

 

Hearst Tower is the first "green" high rise office building completed in New York City, with a number of environmental considerations built into the plan. The floor of the atrium is paved with heat conductive limestone. Polyethylene tubing is embedded under the floor and filled with circulating water for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Rain collected on the roof is stored in a tank in the basement for use in the cooling system, to irrigate plants and for the water sculpture in the main lobby. 85% of the building's structural steel contains recycled material. Overall, the building has been designed to use 26% less energy than the minimum requirements for the city of New York, and earned a gold designation from the United States Green Building Council’s LEED certification program, becoming New York City's first LEED Gold skyscraper.

 

The atrium features escalators which run through a 3-story water sculpture titled Icefall, a wide waterfall built with thousands of glass panels, which cools and humidifies the lobby air. The water element is complemented by a 70-foot-tall (21 m) fresco painting titled Riverlines by artist Richard Long.

 

 

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