Cass Gilbert's Woolworth Building

About This Book

This Scalar book provides a multi-media study of the Woolworth Building and its architectural design process. It draws primarily from Vanderbilt University's Reiman Collection, which includes over 150 drawings of the Woolworth Building from Cass Gilbert's studio. These drawings are connected to material in other collections, including those at the Library of Congress and the New-York Historical Society.

The section titled "Architectural Drawings of the Woolworth Building" shows different spaces in the building--from the exterior to the entry hall to a typical tower floor--that are represented in Vanderbilt's collection of drawings. For each of these spaces, there are drawings from various stages of the design process. These drawings are paired with contemporary articles about the Woolworth Building and photos of each space. Each of these spatially oriented pages include paths to drawings which are in Vanderbilt's collection; this means that a link at the bottom of the page directs you to a separate page dedicated to each drawing, and these links also appear as sub-sections in the table of contents.

The other sections of this book feature thematic essays written by students in HART 3725W: The Skyscraper: Modern Urban Icon, taught by Professor Kevin Murphy at Vanderbilt University in Fall 2017. These essays compare the Woolworth Building to other skyscrapers around the world, discuss the engineering technology used in the Woolworth Building, and analyze representations of the building in art. The book also includes a bibliography with further readings on the Woolworth Building, Cass Gilbert, and early twentieth century New York. 

This page has paths: