Lobby assignment

The Seagram building

The Seagram building by Mies Van Der Rohe is without doubt a masterpiece. The first approach to the building comes from the streets.  You first have to approach a stairway witch combined the street level to the plaza. It feels like approaching an old temple, stepping up for something holy.

The Seagram has a big generous plaza witch attracts many people and creates a building which isn’t isolated, but addressing it self to the city context. The main thing for this big plaza is that the tower itself only takes a small amount of the site space, giving an indulgence of open space.

The building itself gives you an feeling that inside and outside floats together in one, starting with the travertine tiles outside continuing inside in the same direction with a precise geometry. The buildings big glass façade reflect the inside out and outside in witch only reinforce the feeling of being outside when you are standing inside.

It seems like the building stands on its own and that the plan floats without any load, but actually the load is carried by big columns placed in a perfect geometry for giving you the illusion of free floating plans.

Inside raw walls of concrete gives a very modernist look, but at the same time you also can feel a sleight of classicism and the temple feeling because of the big amount of columns.

The lobby itself doesn’t seem to be a lobby; you would rather define it as an open multi station where it is possible to enter from every side. Also people from outside can se what the employees are during because the space is so open, but at the same time the staff will have a change to feel connected to the outside.

The big sliding doors at the front façade invites in and because of the big glass façade the whole space is filled with light and you therefore only have to use artificially light in the afternoon.

You feel very social when you walk around in the lobby area with no places to hide, but at the same time you get the feeling of being in the spotlight because the space is so open that everybody can see what you are during.

The Ford Foundation.

The first sight of the building only comes when you suddenly realize that you actually are standing I the middle of the plaza, witch leads to the entrance. Somehow the plaza is adapted to the street and therefore you feel welcome, when you try to enter the building that is pulled away from the street and other massive buildings, and stands like an independent building. The building is made out of steel and glass and has the same reflecting effect as The Seagram. Here you also get the feeling of inside and outside is melting together.

When you take the first step inside, you will see the most fantastic waiting room ever. From the main floor you are able to have a sky look directly to the last floor and further on in the big glass ceiling above. You can see all the offices and their steel frames/construction, which is filled with daylight through the glass walls.

Even though the integrated natural light is beautiful inside it still seems like that the workers have a decent view simultaneously with privacy.

The most fantastic thing about this waiting area or atrium is without doubt the subtropical garden with a little burbling pool, which grows inside. It is indeed a magical place, a building that represents a remarkably humanistic view of the workplace.

Because of this attraction the waiting area/atrium have, you don’t really care about the boring and totally uninteresting lobby, which only are there for its purpose and nothing more.

The Marriott Maquis Hotel

You first approach the hotel from the Broadway. At first sight I doesn’t look like a hotel. Here you have shops, theatre and other entertainment places. Then you enter a small arcade and then you see the first sight of a entrance. First you cross a parking area with lots of people and noisy cars, and then you are allowed to enter the building.

I have to say that the location of the hotel is a bit nice, it is also being pulled away from the streets, but at the same time it is directly in the centre of Manhattan.

Inside you don’t think of the building as a hotel, rather a big casino, and it also takes you 8^th floors to get to the lobby area.

The lobby is big and quit hectically with lots of people and several employees. The lobby is serving its purpose, to help and direct people in the right way.

At first it doesn’t seems to have other functions than a lobby, but then you get to sit in their waiting couches, and a whole new universe reveal itself.

From here you are allowed to experience the architecture of the hotel, and it is magnificent.

The hallways on every floor is build so you have a eye vision down to the main floor, and to the big glass ceiling witch is pouring natural light down in the atrium.

I a way you can say that the lobby is a small space in the bigger space, and somehow it is interacting with the rest of the space, looking like a place to stop and look at, but not think of as a lobby, until you actually starts searching for it.