5 Architectural Styles That Define New York City

In a city that is always busy, one can easily see the hallmarks of the past upon looking at New York’s architecture. Home to a range of races, it is no surprise that New York’s diversity extends to its buildings and architecture as well. If you are a New Yorker or someone who wants to know more about the architectural styles that define New York City, read on!

1. Beaux-Arts

This one is the most closely associated architectural style with New York City compared to all the others. It was born at Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts, or National School of Fine Arts, Paris. This style was built on the foundation of classical architecture and combined Rococo influences and French Baroque onto the ancient Greek framework. Beaux Arts was the most distinguished style from the late 19th to the early 20th century, when many of New York’s iconic buildings were being constructed.

What made this architectural style different and impressive from others was the use of innovations like steel-reinforced concrete and large sheets of glass. You can see the structure of the Brooklyn Museum, where this style is especially obvious.

Following are a few notable examples of Beaux-Arts:

The New York Public Library on 42nd street

The Woolworth Building

Brooklyn Museum

Grand Central Station

Metropolitan Museum of Art

James A. Farley Building

Columbia University

Ansonia Hotel

To read more about Beaux-Arts, check out the article on Best Beaux-Arts Buildings in New York City.

1. Art Deco

This architectural style was also born in Paris, and it took the world by storm in the early 20th century – and New York was no exception. It excellently combines a brash, exuberant movement with geometric motifs, integration of industrial craft, and the dramatic historical allusions. This movement’s name is derived from Paris’s 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs, and it survives today in a few New York landmarks.

Buildings made according to this style often incorporated sleek, eye-catching materials such as colorful stones, plastic, chrome plating, glass blocks, and stainless steel.

Following are a few notable examples of Art Deco:

Empire State Building

Rockefeller Center

Verizon Building (previously known as the Barclay–Vesey Building)

30 Rockefeller Plaza

American Radiator Building

General Electric Building

The Iconic Spire of the Chrysler Building

To read more about Art Deco, check out the article on New York’s most iconic Art Deco buildings.

3. Italianate

This style was born in early 19th century England and came to the U.S in the late 1840s. It was inspired by Italian Renaissance architecture and is commonly found in mansions and ornate halls in Europe. However, Italianate style was instead incorporated into low-cost rowhouses/terraced houses in Brooklyn and Manhattan – but thanks to the latest, refined construction techniques that allowed ornamentation in cast-iron and stone, which was previously reserved for the most luxurious homes only.

You can view these prominent features in the building facades seen in:

SoHo’s Cast Iron district

Brownstones of Brooklyn

4. Postmodern

The postmodern architectural style is somehow hard to track down, but it is often described as an answer to the austerity and arrogance of modern buildings if the first half of the 20th century. The style is distinguished by its expressive shapes and features, watered-down historical allusions, bright colors, and often cartoonish elements.

Following are a few notable examples of postmodern architectural style:

Sony Building

Lipstick Building

Scholastic Building

Battery Park City

5. Deconstructivism

Dating back to the 20th and 21st century, this architectural style looks similar to a child’s Lego castle after he starts tearing it down. Basically, this approach takes the form of structures that push the idea of what large-scale buildings can look like to the max limit. So when digital technology allowed to virtualize the ideas in our minds, architects like Frank Gehry didn’t miss the opportunity and created buildings that looked like they were being ripped open and mangled.

However, the term “Deconstructivism” was introduced later in the 1988 Deconstructivist Exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMa).

Following are a few notable examples of deconstructivism: