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Cass Gilbert's Woolworth Building

21st Century Photo of the Woolworth Building

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Elevated to New Heights: The Woolworth Building and the Elevator Rising sixty stories above Broadway, the Woolworth Building remains an iconic building on Manhattan’s skyline. The skyscraper was commissioned by Frank Woolworth, a businessman known for his “Five and Dimes” variety stores. Designed by Cass Gilbert, the Woolworth Building was the tallest building in the world when it opened in 1913. It would hold that status for seventeen years until the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street opened their doors in 1930.

Construction of the massive building was an impressive feat of engineering. It became a “benchmark in the sophisticated application of a range of innovative building technologies.”[1] One of the most notable innovations was the use of the gearless traction elevator. The implementation of this new technology led the Woolworth Building to have a lasting impact on the construction of skyscrapers from the 1900’s onwards.

[1] Fenske, Gail. The skyscraper and the city: the Woolworth Building and the making of modern New York. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014): 7

Ray Li
The Meaning of Gothic Gilbert was not, of course, the first architect to work in Gothic vocabulary. The neo-Gothic style had been in use throughout the United States and the UK in the mid to late 19^th Century, usually in domestic, ecclesiastic or educational buildings. By the early 20^th Century, it had begun to be used in commercial and public buildings as well, which brought to them a sense of monumentality. When used in commercial buildings, the Gothic style could invoke allusions to the commerce and trade of the Middle Ages in the Low Countries and thereby the Protestant work ethic. French architectural historian and architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc praised the Gothic style for its structural rationalism and authenticity, arguing that there are no secrets to the structure of a Gothic building. In the use of Gothic in skyscrapers, architects wanted to invoke “intense spirituality, craftsmanship and social harmony” (perhaps incorrectly) associated with the Middle Ages.[1] The Gothic style was particularly well-suited to the task of ornamenting tall buildings, as it accentuated the verticality of the buildings. In Gilbert’s West Street Building, the addition of the Gothic crown added to the verticality of the Sullivan-esque shaft.[2] Some even argued for the implementation of Gothic to “usher in a period of faith like that which Europe underwent in the Middle Ages,” but these zealots were an exception.[3]

To Gilbert
Gilbert, like most architects, wanted to express meaning in his buildings through his designs. When commissioned to design a new building for the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, D.C., Gilbert chose a classical style to evoke the democracies of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic. Likewise, for the West Street and Woolworth buildings, he chose to refer to the secular Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages and its connotations with commerce. In the Middle Ages, trade and craft guilds started to manifest their commercial prowess by building imposing buildings in prominent locations in cities such as Bruges and Florence.[4] Fenske argues that in his design for the West Street Building, Gilbert was directly referencing the free-trading cities of the Low Countries and their magnificent Gothic municipal buildings. By drawing The West Street Building with boats in front, Gilbert referred to New York’s origins as a mercantile city, in turn relating New York to the great medieval merchant cities of the Low Countries and relates the West Street Building to the cities’ municipal buildings. By extension, the West Street Building, like its medieval counterparts, symbolized democratic independence and the wealth associated with trade. Architecturally, Gilbert’s first plan paid direct homage to its predecessors in that it had a central tower; he aimed to connect his building to towered structures of Flemish medieval cities and aimed to emanate desirable urban qualities like “municipal dignity” grandeur and prosperity.[5] Critics lauded Gilbert’s Gothic design, and he himself asserted that the West Street Building was the latest word on the subject of the treatment of tall buildings.[6] This can be extended to his use of Gothic in the Woolworth Building, because Woolworth approached him due to his exposure to the West Street Building.

Furthermore, there is some possibility that Gilbert may have had a personal preference to the Gothic style, as evidenced by the fact that the first building he ever designed was rendered in a Gothic-inspired fashion: his mother’s house in St. Paul, Minnesota. Trained in the Beaux-Arts manner, he paid great attention to the compositions of his buildings, both from nearby and from a disatnce. Accordingly, at the West Street and Woolworth buildings, Gilbert may have used his many sketches from his travels through Europe to decide what to emulate, both for outlining and detailing.[7] Its skeletal structure evident, and Gothic elements being seemingly integral led one critic to believe that Gilbert intuitively understood the Gothic style, and instead of creating a neo-Gothic building, had unknowingly created an authentic Gothic structure in the form of the Woolworth Building.[8]

To Woolworth
The Gothic style was also important to Woolworth. His house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was designed in the style, as most mansions in the area imitated the Gothic embellishment of the Cornelius Vanderbilt II Mansion. Furthermore, after a buying trip to Europe where he saw many architectural landmarks along the way, Woolworth returned to New York and saw the efficacy of the West Street Building. It is unsurprising therefore that Woolworth would have seen the West Street Building as a model for his new headquarters on the corner of Park Place and Broadway. He first proposed to Gilbert that he wanted his new building to be Gothic in style and based off the Victoria Tower from the Palace of Westminster in London.[9] Woolworth may have liked the associations it would have brought him with the largest colonizer in the world as he built his own business empire. Gilbert’s original design wrapped a skin of Perpendicular Gothic ornamental encrustation over a steel frame.[10] Likewise, Woolworth wanted his new headquarters to manifest ethical business practices, and by choosing Gothic, there was an immediate connection to Christian values.[11] Woolworth compared his buildings to “the awe-inspiring cathedrals of the Middle Ages.”[12] He also endeavored to have his building embody integrity: only elite clients of the highest degree were worthy of renting in his new building.[13]

Gothic Influences on the West Street and Woolworth Buildings
Gilbert’s Woolworth Building, while an original approach to Gothic architecture, was highly influenced by many Northern European Gothic precedents. Gilbert himself stated: “The Palace of Jacques Coeur at Bourges, the Hôtel de Ville at Rouen, the Hôtel de Cluny in Paris, the Town Hall at Middelburg, Hôtel de Ville, Compiègne,” along with “the towers of Reims, Antwerp, and Malines, and many others all contributed their quota of precedent and suggestion in the development of the detail” of the Woolworth Building.[14] The Palace of Jacques Coeur had stalls for selling wares around a central courtyard. The Woolworth Building also has stores (including the New York staple: Starbucks) facing the street and further stores face the internal stairwell, and many other public amenities reside within the building itself. From the Town Hall of Middelburg (see slideshow at bottom of page), Gilbert directly lifted flamboyant Gothic detailing that he used in the crown of the Woolworth building and the spandrels between the floors. It is further possible that Gilbert drew inspiration for the corner tourelles from this building. The composition of the West Street and Woolworth Buildings was likely highly inspired by the Hôtel de Ville at Compiègne and the Town Hall at Oudenaarde (see bottom of page), as was the transition between the lower building and tower making use of a transverse gable and mansard roof. Likewise, flattened Gothic arches around square windows is a feature that appears prominently at both the West Street and Woolworth buildings.

Reims Cathedral could have inspired the now-lost open tracery of the corner tourelles and the transparency Gilbert aimed for in designing the Woolworth Building. Antwerp Cathedral’s towering presence is achieved through its use of setbacks to create a tapering outline that Gilbert sought to mimic in the Woolworth Building. Had it been completed, Malines Cathedral (See bottom of page) would have likely tapered to a point like the tower at Antwerp. There, the eye is drawn upward by the thick, strong-looking buttressing that creates deep vertical shadows that cause the horizontal features to disappear. Gilbert himself said of the Cathedral: it is “remarkable for the effect of its rise or uplift —a sort of grand fliyng upward” with “many deep buttresses, giving vigorous vertical lines.”[15] Gilbert presumably ventured to echo the “vibe” of Malines Cathedral’s verticality (that incidentally aligned with Sullivanian ideals) in his design for the Woolworth Building.

Also very influential was the first building whence Woolworth asked Gilbert to seek inspiration: The Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster in London. Massing and setback of top storey. The strong vertical lines of the Woolworth Building are direct quotations from the Victoria Tower, and likewise are the horizontal string courses, employed to avoid a fluted column phenomenon in the shaft. The Woolworth Building’s corner tourelles are similar to those on the Victoria Tower, and the inset windows of the Victoria Tower could have influenced Gilbert’s play of shadow with canopies of the windows near the crown. Influence from the riverfront façade of the Palace can be seen on the rear of the Woolworth Building, where there are perpendicular Gothic tower-like finials atop each wing.

[1] Lisa Reilly, “Design and Study of the Past” in Skyscraper Gothic: Medieval Style and Modernist Buildings, ed. Kevin D. Murphy and Lisa Reilly (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2017), 31.
[2] Gail Fenske, “Medievalism, Mysticism and Modernity,” in Skyscraper Gothic: Medieval Style and Modernist Buildings, ed. Kevin D. Murphy and Lisa Reilly (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2017), 69.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Robert G. Calkins, “Secular Architecture in the Middle Ages” in Medieval Architecture in Western Europe from A.D. 300 to 1500 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 300.
[5] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 106-107, 110. and Calkins, “Secular Architecture in the Middle Ages,” 301.
[6] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 114, 117.
[7] Fenske, Medievalism, 66.
[8] Ibid., 71-72.
[9] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 123.
[10] Ibid., 129.
[11] Reilly, Design, 29.
[12] Fenske, Medievalism, 75.
[13] ibid., 76.
[14] Gilbert, Cass, quoted by Fenske in Medievalism, 71.
[15] Fenske, Medievalism, 67.
Commanding the Skyline: The Woolworth Building as a Model for The Columbian Mutual Tower The Columbian Mutual Tower (now known as the Lincoln American Tower at Court Square Center) in Memphis, Tennessee, is frequently described as a replica of the Woolworth Building in New York City at a one-third scale.[1] While the origins of these claims is not cited and probably apocryphal, the similarities of the two buildings is undeniable. Both have U-shaped bases with towers rising at the center of their façades and steeply pitched green roofs. The exteriors of both buildings are sheathed in glazed terra cotta tiles, and both are designed in the Gothic Revival mode. The physical similarities invite comparison, and the differences in scale reflect differing economic landscapes on both a city and regional level. The Woolworth Building, completed in 1913 and designed by Cass Gilbert, was constructed as the headquarters of the F. W. Woolworth Company. At 792 feet, it was the tallest building in the world from its completion until 1930. The Columbian Mutual Tower was completed a decade later in 1924 as the headquarters of the Columbian Mutual Life Assurance Society and was designed by Isaac Albert Baum. With a height of 288 feet, it was the tallest building in Memphis until 1930. Both buildings functioned as advertisement for their respective companies through their superlative heights. Moreover, the Columbian Mutual Tower’s visual similarities with the Woolworth Building served to associate it with the larger building’s international success. The Woolworth Building’s superlative height made it a compelling image of economic prosperity for the Columbian Mutual Assurance Society to emulate in their own headquarters. It is not, however, an exact replica, and the design of the Columbian Mutual Tower reflects its local context as well as the influence of national architectural trends.

[1] e.g. Dell Upton, “Social History of Architecture,” in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 21: Art and Architecture, edited by Estill Curtis Pennington and Judith H. Bonner, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013): 186.

Ellen Dement
State of the F. W. Woolworth Company: An Analysis of the Different Positions of the F. W. Woolworth Company, Seagram Company, and AT&T Surrounding the Development of Their Signature Skyscrapers 6 An Analysis of the Different Positions of the F. W. Woolworth Company, Seagram Company, and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company Surrounding the Development of Their Signature Skyscrapers plain 2017-12-27T17:18:03-08:00
F. W. Woolworth Company
Before having commissioned and moved into the Woolworth Building, F. W. Woolworth had offices for his company in a building directly facing the plot that would eventually become his namesake company’s signature office building. (1) This meant that he had a thorough understanding of the area and the other businesses that were tenants in neighboring buildings, which he could eventually use to his advantage as he tried to lure them into what was then the tallest building in the world. (2) Furthermore, the continued push towards urbanization and rising land prices and rents meant that some businesses were beginning to think of making an investment and developing their own bespoke skyscraper project. (3) Cass Gilbert, architect of the renowned Woolworth Building in New York, once said that a skyscraper was “a machine that makes the land pay.” (4) In 1910, the Woolworth Company ended up commissioning Gilbert to design the Woolworth Building, meant to be the new headquarters for the company and a symbol of their success. (5) Woolworth commissioned this structure following the incorporation of his company, the opening of its first international store location, and the beginning of merger talks (which ended up being completed with four major competitors in 1911). (6) By commissioning their own sixty story building, of which they only used around two stories for themselves, Woolworth suddenly became a major player in the New York real estate market. All of the speculative space in the building was meant to capitalize on the Woolworth Company’s partners and neighboring businesses wanting to be in such a signature building and become an additional revenue stream for the company. (7)
Seagram Company
Contrary to the common school of thought regarding the construction of skyscrapers, the Seagram Building was not commissioned during a great time for the company. Seagram had become one of Canada’s largest distillers prior to moving their headquarters from Montreal to New York City, where they first occupied space in the Chrysler Building, in 1934. (8) The Seagram Company that ended up commissioning the famous building that shares its name actually came about when Samuel Bronfman, owner of family business Distiller’s Corporation Limited, purchased the Seagram distillery that was floundering during Prohibition in 1928. (9) As a result of the concerns about the Seagram Company’s involvement with illegal alcohol production and distribution during the Prohibition era, the company’s reputation, along with Bronfman’s own, was getting dragged through the mud. Understanding that his company was occupying the headlines far too often for negative reasons and criminal activity speculation, Bronfman set about taking control of the narrative in the press. Contrary to the common perception that the typical company would commission the development of a signature building project during a time of economic success and strong public relations, Bronfman clearly did not follow that model. (10)

In order to take back the narrative and manipulate the press surrounding his company in a more positive light, Bronfman commissioned the Seagram Building in 1954. (11) In the past, companies like the F. W. Woolworth Company commissioned their signature namesake building as they were expanding internationally and merging with competitors domestically to expand their reach. (12) Yet, the Seagram Building was meant to make a statement in the same way that the Woolworth Building was. Both buildings served two main purposes: displaying the power of the corporation and serving as a real estate investment in a hot market. (13) Every new skyscraper construction was a speculative activity to a certain extent. The company commissioning the building very rarely, if ever, used up all of the space in the building. For example, the Woolworth Company only used around two stories out of their sixty story tower and the Seagram Company used under 200,000 square feet of the roughly half million square feet Seagram Building. (14) (15)
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T)
In its heyday, AT&T had expanded to be one of, if not the, largest and most powerful corporations in the world. (16) Due to some relatively manipulative business practices in dealing with distributors on a more local level, AT&T had drawn the ire of MCI Communications. Following a skirmish that ended up with Illinois Bell, a subsidiary of AT&T, shutting off access to telecommunications services for MCI Communications in the area. As a result of what they viewed as an unfair competitive advantage stemming from monopolistic practices, MCI Communications began gathering evidence to justify their view of the situation. Having been based out of Washington, D.C. in close proximity to the lawmakers, MCI Communications had a fair bit of sway, and ended up submitting evidence to the Department of Justice that supported the claim that AT&T was in violation of anti-trust laws. In 1974, the Federal Communications Commission formally entertained an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T on suspicions that it was using profits from its technology division to subsidize the costs of its telephone service and leveraging its government-supported monopoly on the telecommunications industry to stifle competition and put its distributors out of business. After a long process, MCI Communications was awarded $1.8 billion to compensate for the monopolistic actions taken by AT&T. Additionally, AT&T agreed to a breakup of the Bell System that had caused the antitrust suit with MCI Communications in 1982. As a result of having divested from the localized Bell Systems, AT&T suddenly was a much weaker and smaller company, no longer needing all of the space being created with the AT&T Building.
With construction having started on the AT&T Building in 1980, the design and planning indefinitely were done a few years in advance. However, the antitrust lawsuit brought up against AT&T was filed in 1974, meaning that the company definitely had time to process what was being brought up against them before continuing on with the skyscraper. At a time when the company knew that the possibility existed that the Department of Justice would order that the company splits up to fall in line with monopoly regulations, they continued on with constructing a signature building. Prior to the lawsuit having been brought against them, AT&T had been doing well financially, as their government-sanctioned monopoly meant that they could focus on innovating their products and improving performance for their customers without the fear of competition coming in and undercutting their prices. Nevertheless, by the time the skyscraper was being built, they had been ordered to pay out $1.8 billion to one of their competitors and they had been dealing with the Department of Justice for over six years. Applying the ideology of the prevailing school of thought in skyscraper economics, the conclusion would be made that AT&T was likely faring pretty well in the early 1980s. Yet, this could not have been further from the truth. When considering the full context, it becomes apparent that AT&T commissioned their signature building to make a statement. As a way of showing to the world that the company did not fear the antitrust suit and was still one of the world’s most dominant corporations, AT&T continued on with the construction of this building publicly displaying their might. Similar to the Seagram Building, the AT&T Building in New York is a key counterexample to the notion that skyscrapers are built during times of prosperity and success.
By: Daniel Freedland
Sources
1. Gail Fenske and Deryck Holdsworth, “Corporate Identity and the New York Office Building: 1895-1915,” In The Landscape of Modernity: Essays on New York City, 1900-1940, ed. David Ward and Olivier Zunz (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992), 145.
2. Fenske and Holdsworth, “Corporate Identity,” 146-147.
3. Carol Willis, Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995), 146.
4. Willis, Form Follows Finance, 19.
5. Gail Fenske, “Medievalism, Mysticism, and Modernity in Early-Twentieth Century New York,” In Skyscraper Gothic, ed. Kevin D. Murphy and Lisa Reilly (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017), 55.
6. Fenske and Holdsworth, “Corporate Identity,” 145.
7. Willis, Form Follows Finance, 146-147.
8. Phyllis Lambert, Building Seagram (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 4.
9. Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell, Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History (ABC-CLIO, 2003), 554.
10. Fenske and Holdsworth, “Corporate Identity,” 129-130.
11. Lambert, Building Seagram, 6.
12. Fenske and Holdsworth, “Corporate Identity,” 145-146.
13. Willis, Form Follows Finance, 146.
14. Fenske and Holdsworth, “Corporate Identity,” 145.
15. Lambert, Building Seagram, 38.
16. Steve Coll, The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T (New York: Atheneum, 1986).
American Gothic
West Street Building
The precedent for the Woolworth Building was the West Street Building in Lower Manhattan. There, Gilbert executed a highly decorative Gothic skyscraper. Originally, he designed it with a five-storey central tower, such that it looked like one of the municipal buildings of the low countries.[1] Some of his designs were Romanesque revival, others were Gothic. Ultimately, the verticality of Gothic fit the brief for a skyscraper better than Romanesque. Vertical terracotta mullions draw the eye upward to the highly detailed flamboyant Gothic crown. In this way, Gilbert combined the lessons of skyscraper design from Louis Sullivan (from his Bayard-Condict Building in New York) and his Beaux-Arts background, blending functionality and ornament.[2] It is thought that Gilbert connected the design of this new commercial money-making structure to the client’s Flemish and Dutch ancestry.

F.W. Woolworth Company
Businessman-architect relationship
Frank Woolworth opened his first five-cent store in Utica, New York in 1879, but failed to maintain profitability. He opened his second store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he argued that local Quakers knew the value of a nickel.[3] Woolworth was able to bring a big city shopping experience to small town America and took great advantage of the technological advancements of the era, especially the telegraph and the railroads in order to grow his empire.[4] Woolworth was new money in New York and being a man of taste, he argued that the opulence of his new offices at 280 Broadway demonstrated sound financial practice, and undertook a beautification and branding program throughout his empire of stores.[5] Between 1896 and 1900, this beautification and branding program allegedly increased sales by 100% by alluring passersby with a uniform, appealing look to Woolworth’s stores throughout the country.[6] However, design was a limited vehicle for conveying advertisement. Therefore, in 1900, Woolworth chose to build a new headquarters in Lancaster. Its purpose was to be the nicest building in town and to give Woolworth the image that came with it.[7]

In 1905, Woolworth incorporated his company and needed new headquarters in New York City. At the time, the Singer Building was the tallest in the world, and was straight down Broadway from Woolworth’s offices at Broadway and Chambers Street, which is also right across Broadway from Gilbert’s Broadway-Chambers Building.[8] This may have been Woolworth’s first exposure to Gilbert as an architect, and by 1910, Woolworth had asked Gilbert to design his new headquarters between Barclay Street and Park Place on Broadway.
Why did Woolworth choose Cass Gilbert? Gilbert had garnered national fame as a result of his commission for the State Capitols of Minnesota and Arkansas, as well as for his design of the US Custom House in Manhattan. Woolworth may have seen Gilbert’s work either in Minnesota when visiting his stores or at the Custom House in New York, as the Woolworth Company was the nation’s largest importer.[9] For Woolworth however, it would have been the exposure he had to Gilbert’s Broadway-Chambers Building and of utmost relevance, the West Street Building, but a few blocks away from the site of the future Woolworth Building. Woolworth approached Gilbert seeking a grander version of the West Street Building “having admired the Gothic style of that structure.”[10]

The Woolworth Building
Cass Gilbert’s design rises from the sidewalk of Broadway 792 feet above street level. The façade is articulated by vertical mullions, and the vertical divisions of the building are designated by horizontal Gothic canopies. The tower’s vertical mullions are thicker and run from the street all the way to the corner tourelles and add a sense of stability to the tower as anchor of the building. Gilbert avoids monotony in the shaft by alternating the style of the spandrels as well as by dividing it into groups of five floors, with the fifth floor in each group having arched spandrels topped with a string course. This shows that Gilbert was acutely aware of the aesthetic challenges of designing tall buildings. Furthermore, the transition between building and tower is articulated using a mansard roof and a transverse gable, visually connecting the tower with the building, something that the Singer Building lacked. Gilbert obviously wanted to make a signature statement on the skyline, not only as the tallest building in the city, but also as one of the most attractive. Towards the crown, the decoration increases in scale and ornament, as this was the most defining feature of the building from a distance. Unfortunately, the crown of the building is no longer in its original state, as the ornamental tourelles have been replaced with postmodern-looking simplified flattened versions, presumably to save money on repairs.[11]

The Meaning of Gothic
The neo-Gothic style had been in use throughout the United States and the UK in the mid to late 19th Century, usually in domestic, ecclesiastic or educational buildings. By the early 20th Century, it had begun to be used in commercial and public buildings as well which brought to them a sense of monumentality. When used in commercial buildings, the Gothic style could invoke allusions to the commerce and trade of the Middle Ages in the Low Countries and thereby the Protestant work ethic. French architectural historian and architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc praised the Gothic style for its structural rationalism and authenticity: there are no secrets to the structure of a Gothic building. In the use of Gothic in skyscrapers, architects wanted to invoke “intense spirituality, craftsmanship and social harmony” (perhaps incorrectly) associated with the Middle Ages.[12] The Gothic style was particularly well-suited to the task of ornamenting tall buildings as it accentuated the verticality of the buildings. In Gilbert’s West Street Building, the addition of the Gothic crown added to the verticality of the Sullivan-esque shaft.[13] Some even argued for the implementation of Gothic to “usher in a period of faith like that which Europe underwent in the Middle Ages,” but these zealots were an exception.[14]

—To Gilbert
Gilbert, like most architects, wanted to express meaning in his buildings through his designs. When commissioned to design a new building for the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, DC, Gilbert chose a classical style to evoke the democracies of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic. Likewise, for the West Street and Woolworth buildings, he chose to refer to Medieval Gothic architecture and its connotations with commerce. In the Middle Ages, trade and craft guilds started to manifest their commercial prowess by building imposing buildings in prominent locations in cities such as Bruges and Florence.[15] Fenske argues that in his design for the West Street Building, Gilbert was directly referencing the free-trading cities of the Low Countries and their magnificent gothic municipal buildings. By drawing his building with boats in front, Gilbert referred to New York’s origins as a mercantile city, in turn relating New York to the great medieval merchant cities of the low countries and relates the West Street Building to the cities’ municipal buildings. By extension, the West Street Building, like its medieval counterparts, symbolized democratic independence and the wealth associated with trade. Architecturally, Gilbert’s first plan payed direct homage to its predecessors in that it had a central tower; he aimed to connect his building to towered structures of Flemish medieval cities and aimed to effuse desirable urban qualities like “municipal dignity” grandeur and prosperity.[16] Critics lauded Gilbert’s gothic design, and he himself asserted that the West Street Building was the latest word on the subject of the treatment of tall buildings.[17] This can be extended to his use of Gothic in the Woolworth Building, because Woolworth approached him due to his exposure to the West Street Building.

Furthermore, there is some possibility that Gilbert may have had a personal preference to the Gothic style, as evidenced by the fact that the first building he ever designed was rendered in a Gothic-inspired fashion: his mother’s house in St. Paul, Minnesota. Trained in the Beaux-Arts manner, he paid great attention to the compositions of his buildings, both from nearby and afar. Accordingly, at the West Street and Woolworth buildings, Gilbert may have used his many sketches from his travels through Europe to decide what to emulate.[18] Its skeletal structure evident, and Gothic elements being seemingly integral led one critic to believe that Gilbert intuitively understood the Gothic style, and instead of creating a neo-Gothic building, had unknowingly created an authentic Gothic structure in the form of the Woolworth Building.[19]

—To Woolworth
The Gothic style was also important to Woolworth. His house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was designed in the style, as most mansions in the area constructed after Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s copied its Gothic embellishment. Furthermore, after a buying trip to Europe where he saw many architectural landmarks along the way, Woolworth returned to New York and saw the efficacy of the West Street Building and wanted to model it in his own new headquarters on the corner of Park Place and Broadway. He first proposed to Gilbert that he wanted his new building to be gothic in style and based off the Victoria Tower from the Palace of Westminster in London.[20] Woolworth may have liked the associations it would have brought him with the largest colonizer in the world as he built his own business empire. Gilbert’s original design wrapped a skin of perpendicular gothic ornamental encrustation over a steel frame.[21] Likewise, Woolworth wanted his new headquarters to manifest ethical business practices, and by choosing Gothic, there was an immediate connection to Christian values.[22] Woolworth compared his buildings to “the awe-inspiring cathedrals of the Middle Ages.”[23] He also endeavored to have his building embody integrity: only elite clients of the highest degree were worthy of renting in his new building.[24]

Influences and Purpose of Gothic:
Gilbert’s Woolworth Building, while an original approach to Gothic architecture, was highly influenced by many Northern European Gothic precedents. Gilbert himself stated: “The Palace of Jacques Coeur at Bourges, the Hôtel de Ville at Rouen, the Hôtel de Cluny in Paris, the Town Hall at Middelburg, Hôtel de Ville, Compiègne,” along with “the towers of Reims, Antwerp, and Malines, and many others all contributed their quota of precedent and suggestion in the development of the detail” of the Woolworth Building.[25] The Palace of Jacques Coeur had stalls for selling wares around a central courtyard. The Woolworth Building also has stores (including the New York staple: Starbucks) facing the street and further stalls face the internal stairwell and many other public amenities reside within the building itself. From the Town Hall of Middelburg, Gilbert directly lifted flamboyant Gothic detailing that he used in the crown of the Woolworth building and spandrels between the floors. It is further possible that Gilbert drew inspiration for the corner tourelles from this building. The composition of the West Street and Woolworth Buildings was likely highly inspired by the Hôtel de Ville at Compiègne and the Town Hall at Oudenaarde, as was the transition between the lower building and tower making use of a transverse gable and mansard roof. Likewise, flattened Gothic arches around square windows is a feature that appears prominently at both the West Street and Woolworth buildings.

Reims Cathedral could have inspired the now-lost open tracery of the corner tourelles and the transparency Gilbert aimed for in designing the Woolworth Building. Antwerp Cathedral’s towering presence is achieved through its use of setbacks to create a tapering outline that Gilbert sought to mimic in the Woolworth Building. Had it been completed, Malines Cathedral would have likely tapered to a point like the tower at Antwerp. There, the eye is drawn upward by the thick, strong-looking buttressing that creates deep vertical shadows that cause the horizontal features to disappear. Gilbert himself said of the Cathedral: it is “remarkable for the effect of its rise or uplift —a sort of grand fliyng upward” with “many deep buttresses, giving vigorous vertical lines.”[26] Gilbert presumably ventured to echo the “vibe” of Malines Cathedral’s verticality (that incidentally aligned with Sullivanian ideals) in his design for the Woolworth Building.

Also very influential was the first building whence Woolworth asked Gilbert to seek inspiration: The Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster in London. Massing and setback of top storey. The strong vertical lines of the Woolworth Building are direct quotations from the Victoria Tower, and likewise are the horizontal string courses, employed to avoid a fluted column phenomenon in the shaft. The Woolworth Building’s corner tourelles are similar to those on the Victoria Tower, and the inset windows of the Victoria Tower could have influenced Gilbert’s play of shadow with canopies of the windows near the crown. Influence from the riverfront façade of the Palace can be seen on the rear of the Woolworth Building, where there are perpendicular Gothic tower-like finials atop each wing.

Gilbert's Traditionalism and his Creation of an American Style
While the United States and the rest of the Western World were obsessing over art deco, in 1926, Gilbert designed a more traditional conservative building for the New York Life Insurance Company. He recycled certain ornamentation from the Woolworth project and used the Gothic style this time it in a more English way: a heavy squat stone building in comparison to the soaring, weightless-yet-grounded Flamboyant French and Low Country style used in the Woolworth Building. Gilbert himself referred to the style of the building, a mix of Renaissance, Gothic and Art Deco as “American Perpendicular.”[27]

Cass Gilbert and Frank Woolworth sought to create a new style for a new type of building: the iconic representation of corporate America. To legitimize capitalist society, the Woolworth Building harks back to the grand municipal buildings of the Low Countries. Even as it was understood by contemporary people, the Woolworth Building’s association with ecclesiastical architecture as the Cathedral of Commerce were not a demerit. Gilbert as architect and Woolworth as patron worked to blend disparate Northern European late-Gothic elements into a harmonious whole; much like the United States was a blend of the cultures of Northern Europe, the two men aimed to reflect that notion in their choice of Northern European Gothic influences when designing the Woolworth Building. He was always trying to relate the style of the building to the needs of the client.[28] He had a conservative but not static approach to design, and was able to adapt according to demands of function and market considerations.[29] Gilbert managed to create a new Gothic style that he continued to morph as times changed and clients demanded more modern designs that were still rooted in the past. Cass Gilbert’s versatility and the authenticity of his Gothic work lead me to believe that he was actively seeking a truly American style – the “American Gothic.”

[1] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 106.
[2] Ibid., 94.
[3] Ibid., 13.
[4] Ibid., 18-19.
[5] Ibid., 20-21.
[6] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 27, 29.
[7] Ibid., 32-34.
[8] Ibid., 68.
[9] Ibid., 68
[10] Gilbert, Cass, quoted in Fenske, The Skyscraper, 68.
[11] Postal, Matthew A., ed., Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.), New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2009, 25. much of the terracotta cladding was removed between 1977 and 1981 and was replaced with concrete.
[12] Lisa Reilly, “Design and Study of the Past” in Skyscraper Gothic: Medieval Style and Modernist Buildings, ed. Kevin D. Murphy and Lisa Reilly (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2017), 31.
[13] Gail Fenske, “Medievalism, Mysticism and Modernity,” in Skyscraper Gothic: Medieval Style and Modernist Buildings, ed. Kevin D. Murphy and Lisa Reilly (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2017), 69.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Robert G. Calkins, “Secular Architecture in the Middle Ages” in Medieval Architecture in Western Europe from A.D. 300 to 1500 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 300.
[16] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 106-107, 110. and Calkins, “Secular Architecture in the Middle Ages,” 301.
[17] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 114, 117.
[18] Fenske, Medievalism, 66.
[19] Ibid., 71-72.
[20] Fenske, The Skyscraper, 123.
[21] Ibid., 129.
[22] Reilly, Design, 29.
[23] Fenske, Medievalism, 75.
[24] ibid., 76.
[25] Gilbert, Cass, quoted by Fenske in Medievalism, 71.
[26] Fenske, Medievalism, 67.
[27] Irish, Cass Gilbert, 153.
[28] e.g. the choice of monumental heavy Beaux-Arts style for the US Custom House reflected the clients’ desire to emphasize the importance and wealth of the Port of New York, and the choice of Classical architecture in the Supreme Court Building in DC to represent the inheritance of the democratic process from Ancient Greece and Rome.
[29] Irish, Cass Gilbert, 58-59.