Ten Buildings — Ten Masterpieces of New York Art Deco

Ten Buildings — Ten Masterpieces of New York Art Deco

Ten Buildings — Ten Masterpieces of New York Art Deco

The decorative programs of Art Deco Manhattan — photographed in full and documented to primary sources.

Between 1924 and 1939, a generation of architects, sculptors, and metalworkers transformed the commercial lobbies of Manhattan into complete symbolic environments. Bronze grilles, elevator doors, painted vaults, and polychrome ceilings — conceived not as decoration added to architecture, but as the architecture itself. Ten buildings document the full range of that achievement: from the first Art Deco motif on an American building to the most ambitious iconographic program ever cast in bronze.

Oscar Bach aluminum bas-relief, Empire State Building lobby, New York, 1931. Machine Age map with celestial rays. Photographed by Roberto Bigano.

This featured story brings together the ten buildings at the core of the NYC Art Deco Archive — each documented in sequence, in context, and against the primary sources that define it. Some stories are complete. Others are in progress. All images are available now.

The archive was built in March 2024, when Roberto Bigano spent five weeks inside sixty-five Manhattan buildings documenting interiors that most New Yorkers have never stopped to look at. Twenty-three photographs — 32 pages and a cover — were published in FMR Magazine. Gotham Deco: Modern Metropolis. This Was Tomorrow, with an essay by Anthony W. Robins

Edgar Brandt and Cheney Silk — Madison Belmont Building, 1924

First American Art Deco

This is not an Art Deco building. It is not an interior. It is here because of one object — the frozen fountain on the entrance at 181 Madison Avenue — which changed everything and is considered the first application of Art Deco on an American building. The first. The most recognizable. The most influential.

In 1924, the Cheney Brothers Silk Company commissioned the building from Warren & Wetmore — the architects of Grand Central Terminal. The building itself was Neoclassical in form, a transitional structure carrying a detail that belonged to a different world entirely.

Cheney Brothers were not a neutral client. Their silk advertising of the 1920s — placed in the New Yorker and Harper's Bazaar — was among the most visually sophisticated of the era. The same sensibility that chose Brandt chose those pages. The story of the building cannot be told without the company that built it.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

Frozen Fountain Decoration, inspired by Edgar Brandt's gates, exhibited at the 1925 Exposition in Paris. Madison Belmont Building, 183 Madison Avenue

Edgar Brandt's Frozen Fountain — Madison Belmont, New York, 1924

The frozen fountain motif on the Madison Belmont entrance was designed by French iron master Edgar Brandt. The motif — stylized water cascading in symmetrical curves — originated in Brandt's monumental gate at the 1925 Paris Exposition.

Here, in wrought iron with gold and bronze accents, it became the first major application of what would later be called Art Deco on an American building. The building itself was not in the new style. The decoration was the exception — and became the symbol.

The City of Opportunity — Chanin Building, 1929

New York, 1929 — A City at its peak, casting its ambitions in bronze.

Completed in 1929 at the height of New York's Jazz Age construction boom, the Chanin Building stands as one of the most intellectually ambitious expressions of American Art Deco. Its façade is admired, its lobby celebrated — but its most fully argued artworks are found in the vestibule: eight monumental gilt-bronze radiator grilles, conceived as a symbolic cycle of human development.

René Paul Chambellan and Jacques Delamarre encoded the stages of human development in pure geometric abstraction. The program was admired for nearly a century without being fully understood.

The key was a 1929 article in Architectural Forum in which Jacques Delamarre explained the complete iconographic logic at the moment of completion. The article existed. It was buried, unrecognized, unconnected to the grilles. Ikonographia identified it, paired it with high-resolution photography that makes the relief legible, and reconstructed "The City of Opportunity" as a complete iconographic cycle — for the first time.

Art Deco Allegory of Effort — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Effort.
The struggle against resistance.
From "The City of Opportunity — Physical Series."

Here, spirals tighten, diagonals collide, and curves appear compressed, as if bearing weight. The composition visualizes the tension between aspiration and the obstacles that define it. Effort is the architecture of perseverance.

bule, New York, 1929.

Success.
The reward of sustained action.
From "The City of Opportunity — Physical Series."

Symmetry returns, crowned with a radiant rising form. Success is rendered not as excess but as order — the balanced resolution of struggle. Spirals unfurl, energy flows upward, and the pattern resolves into harmony.

When Babylon Met Fifth Avenue — Fred French Building, 1927

One architect's obsession with ancient Babylon. One sculptor's mastery in bronze. A New York landmark unlike any other.

Completed in 1927, the Fred F. French Building stands as one of Manhattan’s finest expressions of the early Art Deco-Babylonian hybrid style.

While the tower is admired for its stepped crown and gilded ornament, its most exceptional artworks lie in the lobby, conceived by Douglas H. Ives and realized by sculptor Vincent Glinsky and master metalworker Oscar Bach: eight bronze elevator panels, a monumental mailbox, and a complete bronze decoration program.

The lobby contains one of the most complete bronze programs in American Art Deco — eight gilded elevator panels, a monumental mailbox that compresses the entire symbolic argument of the building into a single object, and an entrance relief of allegorical figures dense with ancient Near Eastern imagery. Conceived by Ives, sculpted by Glinsky, cast by Bach.

The Symbolic Program — Elevator Doors, Fred French Building, New York, 1927.

A complete symbolic program:
Commerce, Industry, Finance, and Building.

The eight gilded panels of the Fred French Building lobby — a sculptural cycle honoring the forces that powered New York's 1920s rise.

The arrangement is graphically balanced, not thematically ordered: the eye moves across figures and ornament before resolving into program. Ives's logic reveals itself slowly — four themes, eight figures, one coherent argument about what a city is and what sustains it.

The most complete Mesopotamian-themed decorative cycle in American Art Deco.

ELevator Doors

These elevator doors visualize the four pillars of Fred F. French’s real-estate empire—Industry, Commerce, Finance, Though allegorical, the imagery was designed for instant legibility. These were the forces shaping New York in the 1920s: the labor that built the skyline, the commerce animating Fifth Avenue, the financial system behind every development, and the architectural vision that defined modern urban life.

Allegories of trade and prosperity — Art Deco Elevator Panel, Fred French Building, New York, 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

Fred French Elevator Panels — Art Deco allegories of trade and finance

The Merchant, Commerce — Symbolizing maritime trade and international exchange.
The Wealth Bearer, Finance — Symbolizing prosperity generated through investment and trade.

The Eagle and the Sunburst — Crowning Element.

The American eagle with outstretched wings, set against radiating sunburst rays. At this distance the precision of Bach's metalwork becomes visible — the feathering, the geometry of the rays, the weight of the form against the flat ground. National symbol and ancient ornament in a single casting.

The Mailbox

At the center of the lobby stands a gilded bronze mailbox — and it says everything twice. A monumental American eagle crowns the composition, wings spread against radiating sunburst rays. Below it, paired Babylonian griffins flank the slot — not as ornament, but as allegory: they are the eagles, translated into the visual language of ancient Mesopotamia. One of them grips a medallion bearing the Fred French Company monogram in its beak.

National symbol and ancient mythology. The same statement, in two languages simultaneously. In a single object, the entire symbolic program of the lobby — compressed.

Babylonian griffins and Tree of Life, lower panel, gilded bronze mailbox, Fred French Building, New York, 1927. Artwork by Vincent Glinsky, metalwork by Oscar Bach, program by Douglas Ives. Photographed by Roberto Bigano.

Glinsky made Babylon and America speak the same visual language.

Paired Mesopotamian griffins flank a stylized plant motif on the lower panel of the mailbox. The griffin on the right bears a medallion with the Fred French company logo — corporate identity seamlessly integrated into ancient iconography.

The creatures' muscular forms and precise geometric borders echo Assyrian palace reliefs, connecting 1920s New York commerce to the authority of ancient empires.

The Same Creature — Fred French Griffin and Assyrian Relief, 4,000 Years Apart

The griffin on the Fred French mailbox and its source on the Assyrian relief at the Pergamon Museum — the same feather treatment, the same headdress, the same profile. Glinsky did not adapt the form.

He quoted it directly, in gilt bronze, on Fifth Avenue, gripping a medallion with the Fred French Company monogram in its beak. Four thousand years and six thousand kilometres apart. The comparison is exact.

The Mesopotamian Connection

Ives's obsession with ancient Babylon was not aesthetic preference. It was research. The Ishtar Gate — excavated from Babylon and reconstructed in Berlin's Pergamon Museum in the early 1900s — provided the direct visual sources for the lions, dragons, and decorative borders throughout the building. Ives and Glinsky were not inventing an exotic style. They were quoting one of the oldest monumental gateways in human history, in gilt bronze, on Fifth Avenue.

The Fred French Building, New York City. The vestibule of the entrance from 45th Street, as seen from the elevator lobby. 1927

The Vaulted Ceiling — Ishtar Gate Creatures in Gold and Color

The barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Fred French Building lobby — Babylonian lions, dragons, and winged griffins painted in gold, blue, and vivid color. The same creatures Ives found in the Ishtar Gate, placed above the bronze program that quotes them below. Every surface in the lobby speaks the same language.

A Machine Age Altar — Empire State Building, 1931

A building at the center of the world

In 1931, the Empire State Building was the tallest structure ever built — 102 floors, 443 meters, constructed in 410 days at the depth of the Great Depression.

The lobby was designed to match that ambition. A ceiling mural of celestial rays by Leif Neandross converges on a single point: the aluminum bas-relief by Oscar Bach, positioned exactly where the rays meet. Bach depicted the building as the center of the world — surrounded by a map of the tristate area, radiating celestial rays. In 1931, aluminum was the material of the Machine Age: modern, industrial, the metal of human ambition. The relief was not decoration. It was the argument made permanent.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

Oscar Bach aluminum bas-relief, Empire State Building lobby, New York, 1931. Machine Age map with celestial rays. Photographed by Roberto Bigano.

The Empire State Relief — A Machine Age Altar, NYC, 1931 — Oscar Bach

The Empire State Lobby, 1931. The floor, the walls, the ceiling — all calculated to deliver the visitor to one point. This is not a lobby. It is a constructed argument about what human ambition can produce — and the aluminum relief by Oscar Bach is its conclusion.

Positioned exactly where the rays of the ceiling mural converge, it was not placed there. It was designed to be there. The architecture does not decorate the relief. It worships it.

Neighbors of Nations — AT&T Long Distance Building, 1932

Telephone Wires and Radio Unite to Make Neighbors of Nations

Ralph Walker held that skyscrapers should be designed for mental comfort as much as physical function. At 32 Avenue of the Americas, completed in 1932, he built the operational hub of AT&T's long-distance telephone network and gave it the material richness of a cathedral.

Hildreth Meiѐre designed two programs for the lobby: a ceiling mosaic of five continental allegories connected by gold telephone wires, and a full end-wall world map in terracotta tile.

The inscription along the base defines the building's purpose: Telephone Wires and Radio Unite to Make Neighbors of Nations. Completed three years into the Depression, it was a deliberate act of optimism — the belief that connection was the answer, rendered in permanent material at architectural scale.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

World map tile mosaic by Hildreth Meiѐre, AT&T Long Distance Building, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, 1932. Architect Ralph Walker. Photographed by Roberto Bigano.

Telephone Wires and Radio Unite to Make Neighbors of Nations — Hildreth Meière

Inscription along the bottom: "Telephone Wires and Radio Unite to Make Neighbors of Nations." A statement of corporate purpose — AT&T's reason for existing — rendered in permanent material at architectural scale.

Asia — Continents Linked by Telephone and Wireless Silhouette Mosaic — Hildreth Meière, 1932 

Asia — Continents Linked by Telephone and Wireless Silhouette Mosaic — Hildreth Meière, 1932 

The allegorical figure of Asia — draped, seated, a pagoda balanced in her raised hand — flanked by a crouching tiger. One of five continental panels on the ceiling of the AT&T lobby, each connected to the central messenger figure by a web of gold telephone wires. The ceiling is a diagram of the network and a statement about what that network meant.

The border echoes Native American quillwork — geometric, precise, a different visual language running alongside the allegorical figures above it.

Detail of the "Asia" Mosaic

Hildreth Meière's technique — tesserae embedded in coral cement while still wet — makes the ground itself luminous. The messenger at the center holds lightning bolts: electricity as a classical attribute, telecommunications given the iconography of myth.

The ceiling is a diagram of the network and a statement about what that network meant.

The Park Avenue of the Bronx — 1150 Grand Concourse, 1937

The Fish Building, the borough’s most celebrated Art Deco apartment house

The Grand Concourse was conceived as the Park Avenue of the Bronx, its buildings designed with exceptional architectural ambition. 1150 Grand Concourse — known as the Fish Building for its polychrome mosaic facade of tropical fish and aquatic forms — is among the finest.

The terrazzo floors were executed by terazzeri from Pordenone and Spilimbergo in the Friuli region — the aristocracy of the immigrant labor force. Their names were never recorded. Their work has outlasted nearly everything around it.
The mosaic facade and the terrazzo interior share a building and a visual vocabulary — nothing else. Two separate crafts, two separate traditions, one address on the Grand Concourse that preserved both.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

rand Concourse terrazzo UFO chandelier Art Deco 1937

Art Deco Terrazzo Lobby and the UFO Chandelier

The circular ceiling light — bronze rings, frosted glass, the geometry of a spacecraft — dominates the lobby axis. Below it, the terrazzo floor extends wall to wall as a single geometric program: radiating forms, concentric rings, chevrons in red, green, and gold. Everything is original. Nothing is incidental.

bule, New York, 1929.

Terrazzo, Chandelier and Elevator Doors

The complete program in one frame — chandelier above, terrazzo below, elevator doors at center. The circular ceiling light in bronze and frosted glass anchors the vertical axis.

The floor radiates outward from a central medallion in red, green, and gold. The elevator doors in cobalt blue and terracotta carry the geometric vocabulary upward. Three elements, one argument.

The Geometry of Energy and Light — 70 Pine Street, 1931

The complete decorative program of an energy empire — in nickel-silver and light.

René Paul Chambellan designed the decorative program at 70 Pine Street — over fifty individual metalwork elements, from exterior aluminum reliefs to lobby grilles and elevator frames. At the center: 24 nickel-silver elevator doors titled "Evolution of Fuel." One panel shows a draped figure holding an oil lamp. The adjacent panel shows a man grasping an electric turbine. Past and future, in white metal, at the scale of architecture. They are among the finest Art Deco reliefs in New York.

Thomas J. George designed the lobby ceiling as the same argument in light. White plaster faceted into wave patterns, stepped corbels in gold, bronze, and copper-leaf, cast-glass fixtures radiating from bronze armatures. Cities Service sold energy. George built a space that made the visitor feel it — before they reached the elevators.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

The elevator doors shows a pair of nickel-silver reliefs

The Evolution of Fuel Elevator Doors, René Chambellan, 1931

The Evolution of Fuel Elevator Doors, René Chambellan, circa 1931. Nickel silver — a copper-nickel-zinc alloy with no actual silver content — holds fine low-relief detail with exceptional clarity. Unlike sterling silver, it does not blacken with age. The surrounding decoration incorporates Native American-inspired zigzags and sunbursts alongside the Cities Service logo.

The elevator doors shows a pair of nickel-silver reliefs

The lobby ceiling fixture an decorations — Cliff Parkhurst.

The lobby ceiling is white plaster, featuring faceted patterns and stepped polychrome corbels with gold, bronze, and copper-leaf relief bands — a thematic reference to the Cities Service Company's business in light, heat, and power.

The space is illuminated by hand-cut translucent cast-glass fixtures decorated with bronze metalwork by Cliff Parkhurst. The light ripples across the ceiling's wave patterns, reinforcing the building's identity as a monument to energy and modern progress.

The Architecture of Finance — 20 Exchange Place, 1931

René Paul Chambellan symbolic Elevator Relief and Light Fixture

At 20 Exchange Place, architects Cross & Cross chose nickel silver deliberately — a copper-nickel-zinc alloy with no actual silver content, prized for its silvery-white luster and resistance to corrosion. Unlike bronze, it does not age to color. The choice was architectural: a unified white finish to complement the building's gray and blue-tinted stone facade. At the time of completion in 1931, it was the world's tallest stone-faced skyscraper.

The iconographic program runs across dozens of entrance and elevator doors, executed under the direction of British sculptor David Evans — old means and new means, advances in industry and transportation financed by the Bank's investments, cast in white metal.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

NYC Art Deco, Elevator Doors' Nickel-Silver Relief, 20 Exchange Place

The March of Progress Elevator Doors — David Evans, 1931

Two stylized female figures in high relief — industrial precision and elegant symbolism in the same surface — representing advances in transportation financed by the Bank's investments: from sailing ships and aerial balloons to ocean liners and modern aircraft.

Nickel silver was chosen by architects Cross & Cross over bronze — a deliberate rejection of colored metal in favor of a unified white finish. The decorative program was executed under the direction of British sculptor David Evans — its visual language aligned with the Art Deco skyline of Lower Manhattan.

Federal Authority — 90 Church Street, 1937

Carl Paul Jennewein — A Federal Commission at the Highest Level of the Craft

Carl Paul Jennewein designed the complete decorative program for 90 Church Street — the sculptor responsible for the equivalent program at the Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C.

The National Seal ceiling light in the lobby — the United States seal rendered in beveled crystal panels set in a bronze octagonal frame, backlit, with an eagle designed to rotate to face either the arrows or the olive branch — is among the most refined federal decorative commissions of the era. Monumental Art Deco eagles anchor the exterior corners.

A federal commission executed at the highest level of the craft, in a building that most visitors to Lower Manhattan have never entered. Photography by Davide Bigano.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

bule, New York, 1929.

National Seal Ceiling Light — Carl Paul Jennewein

The National Seal ceiling light — the United States seal rendered in beveled crystal panels set in a bronze octagonal frame, backlit. The eagle was designed to rotate to face either the arrows or the olive branch, representing war or peace.

Peace & War — Carl Paul Jennewein

The United States National Seal rendered in beveled crystal panels set in a bronze octagonal frame — eagle, shield, stars, and olive branch, backlit.

The seal was designed with the capacity to rotate the eagle's head to face either the arrows or the olive branch, representing war or peace.

Wisdom, Light and Sound — Rockefeller Center, 1933

René Paul Chambellan symbolic Elevator Relief and Light Fixture

Lee Lawrie's triptych spans the main entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza — Wisdom flanked by Light and Sound, thirty-seven feet of Indiana limestone, color by Leon V. Solon. Wisdom holds a compass to measure the forces of the universe. Light represents television — an industry not yet public in 1933, depicted as a cosmic force equal to Wisdom itself. Sound represents radio — and the primary tenant of 30 Rockefeller Plaza was NBC.

Below Wisdom, 240 cast-glass blocks by Corning Glass Works form a trifold screen. Hand-carved limestone and industrial glass: ancient authority, modern material. The Machine Age argument made visible. In 1933, Rockefeller chose both — and Lawrie designed for exactly that pairing. Published in FMR Magazine, Winter Solstice 2024.

Full documentation coming to the NYC Art Deco Archive. Story forthcoming.

Lee Lawrie's Wisdom, close-up — polychrome crown and face, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, 1933. Photographed by Roberto Bigano for FMR

Wisdom — Lee Lawrie

The central figure of a 37-foot triptych — Wisdom, a Voice from the Clouds, with Light and Sound — spanning the main entrance. Lee Lawrie drew on William Blake's Urizen — reason and law made flesh — and gave him the vocabulary of the Machine Age. The Rockefeller complex was commissioned and built through the deepest years of the Great Depression.

At this distance, the figure reveals what the street view cannot: the precision of the polychrome crown, the geometry of each gold and black triangle, the force of a figure pushing back the clouds of ignorance. What remains is the face — looking down, in concentration.

Light Age of Television Lee Lawrie close-up 1933

Light — The Age of Television

The figure representing television — male, arms raised like antennas, transmitting electrical signals and images through the air. The crown of sharp black-and-gold triangles does not ornament the figure. It amplifies him. Indiana limestone, color by Leon V. Solon.

Television in 1933 was not yet a public reality. Lawrie depicted an industry still finding its form and placed it on the facade of Rockefeller Center as a cosmic force equal to Wisdom itself.

Sound, The Age of Radio

The figure representing radio — female, reclining, emerging from clouds. The concentric circles radiating from her are not decoration. They are the signal, rendered in stone. Indiana limestone, color by Leon V. Solon.

Radio in 1933 was the dominant mass medium — and the primary tenant of 30 Rockefeller Plaza was NBC. Lawrie did not illustrate a technology. He gave it a body and placed it alongside Wisdom as a force of equal weight.

Copyright, links and credits

Photography, Copyright & Credits

All photographs © Ikonographia / Roberto Bigano — All Rights Reserved.
These images are part of the Ikonographia Visual Archives: New York City Art Deco Collection.

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Artwork & Building Attribution

Completed in 1927, the Fred F. French Building stands as one of Manhattan's defining Art Deco towers. While its stepped crown and gilded façade are widely admired, its most exceptional achievement lies within: a decorative program conceived by architect H. Douglas Ives and executed in bronze by sculptor Vincent Glinsky — a collaboration that transformed a commercial lobby into a passage through ancient Babylon.

Ives documented his own obsession in writing: the Tower of Seven Planets at Babylon, the Ishtar Gate, Chaldean enameled brick. The iconographic program was not intuition — it was research translated into architecture.

Copyright Status Clarification

Building & Artwork:
The architectural design of this buildingis in the public domain under U.S. copyright law. Buildings constructed before the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act (1990) are not protected as architectural works, and their exteriors and interiors may be freely photographed.

Photographs:
All photographs on this page, however, are copyrighted works of Ikonographia / Roberto Bigano and require a license for any reuse.

Ikonographia Mission Statement

Ikonographia is committed to the accurate documentation, preservation, and ethical dissemination of twentieth-century visual culture.

Archival Notes

These photographs were produced as part of Ikonographia’s ongoing documentation of significant examples of twentieth-century visual culture. Image preparation includes controlled lighting, accurate color management, and perspective correction to preserve architectural integrity and material detail.

Further Reading - Selected Sources

• FMR Magazine No. 12, Winter Solstice 2024 — "Gotham Deco" — Special issue devoted to the Art Deco transformation of 1920s New York, with contributions by Anthony W. Robins and photography by Roberto Bigano. Cover and 24 pages featuring comprehensive documentation of the Chanin Building radiator grilles, the Fred French Building elevator panels and polychrome ceilings, the Light and Sound sculpture at Rockefeller Center, and a curated selection of the city's finest Art Deco interiors.

• Anthony W. Robins, New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture.
• David Stravitz, The Chrysler Building: Creating a New York Icon Day by Day.
• Cervin Robinson & Rosemarie Haag Bletter, Skyscraper Style: Art Deco New York.
• Christopher Gray (archives), The New York Times, “Streetscapes” columns.
• New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission reports (Fred F. French Building).
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Digital Collections (historic metalwork and architectural ornament references).

Acknowledgments

Ikonographia gratefully acknowledges the institutions, archivists, scholars, and architectural historians whose research and preservation efforts help illuminate the cultural significance of New York’s Art Deco heritage.

About H. Douglas Ives . A short bio

Alexey Brodovitch at work ,1950

Brodovitch at work in his studio.

H. Douglas Ives (1888–1945)

H. Douglas Ives (1888–1945) was a New York architect who spent the defining years of his career as chief designer for the Fred F. French Company. Beyond the Fred French Building, his work included Tudor City, the large residential complex on Manhattan's East Side, and Knickerbocker Village on the Lower East Side.

His most celebrated work is the Fred F. French Building at 551 Fifth Avenue (1927). The building's polychromatic crown is among the most discussed Art Deco exteriors in New York. The lobby is his real achievement.

Ives studied the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the Tower of Seven Planets, and the enameled brick of ancient Chaldea directly, and translated them into a complete decorative program — executed in gilt bronze by sculptor Vincent Glinsky and master metalworker Oscar Bach. Every element documented and justified in his own writing before a single panel was cast. The most coherent Mesopotamian-themed interior in American Art Deco.

About Vincent Glinsky. A short bio


Rene Paul Chambellan in his Studio

Vincent Glinsky

Vincent Glinsky (1895–1975)

Vincent Glinsky was a Russian-born American sculptor whose work fused Beaux-Arts training with the emerging modernist vocabulary of the 1920s and 1930s. Educated in Petrograd and later active in New York, he developed a sculptural language marked by precise anatomies, architectural clarity, and an expressive narrative sense ideal for architectural relief.

By the 1920s he became a sought-after collaborator on major Art Deco projects, translating complex symbolic programs—commerce, industry, finance, and civic identity—into refined low-relief compositions. His works remain key examples of American Art Deco humanism, distinguished by rhythmic modeling, monumental simplicity, and sensitivity to architectural settings.

About  Oscar Bach. A short bio.


Rene Paul Chambellan in his Studio

Oscar Bach

Oscar Bach (1884–1957)

Oscar Bach was a German-born master metalworker whose technical innovation shaped some of the most celebrated interiors of early twentieth-century America. Trained in the European guild tradition, he brought exceptional skill in architectural bronze, iron, and nickel-silver to the United States after emigrating in 1911.

Working from his New York studio, Bach produced metalwork for major skyscrapers, department stores, civic buildings, and luxury residences. His style combined Old World ornament with modern geometric clarity, defining a distinctive branch of American Art Deco. His workshop became synonymous with excellence in decorative metal, leaving a legacy preserved in landmarked interiors across the country.

Art Deco Elevator Panels — Fred French Building, 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

Art Deco Elevator Panels — Fred French Building, 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

Art Deco Elevator Panels — Fred French Building, 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

Eight gilt bronze panels — Industry, Commerce, Finance, and Building — conceived as a unified iconographic program.

A rare surviving ensemble of gilt bronze panels created in 1927 by Vincent Glinsky and Oscar Bach.
These elevator doors visualize the four pillars of Fred F. French’s real-estate empire—Industry, Commerce, Finance, and Building—through a sculptural language rooted in Art Deco geometry and documented Babylonian sources.

The Merchant and The Wealth Bearer — Art Deco elevator panels, Fred French Building, New York, 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

Completed in 1927, the Fred F. French Building stands as one of Manhattan’s finest expressions of the early Art Deco style. While the tower is admired for its stepped crown and gilded ornament, its most exceptional artworks lie hidden in the lobby: eight bronze elevator panels conceived by sculptor Vincent Glinsky and master metalworker Oscar Bach.

Commissioned to embody the vision of developer Fred Fillmore French, these doors translate the essential forces driving New York’s rise—labor, trade, wealth, and architecture—into a sophisticated visual program. Their hybrid style reflects Classical allegory, modern stylization, and the direct influence of Babylonian and Chaldean sources — documented by architect H. Douglas Ives in his own writing before a single panel was cast.

Allegory of Trade — The Merchant — Art Deco Elevator Panel, Fred French Building, New York — 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

The Merchant — Commerce.

Symbolizing maritime trade and international exchange.

Holding a ship in his hand, the bearded figure embodies maritime trade — the engine of international commerce in the early twentieth century.

His confident pose and the ship he carries identify him directly — a Mesopotamian merchant prince, translated into gilt bronze by Glinsky following Ives's documented sources.

The Beehiver — Art Deco elevator panel, Fred French Building, New York, 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

The Beekeeper — Commerce.

Symbolizing industriousness, shared enterprise, and the organization of commerce.

A seated woman holds a beehive — the ancient emblem of collective effort and the wealth that organized labor produces.

Her pose and adornment place her within the same Babylonian visual tradition as the panels around: composed, frontal, deliberate. Commerce rendered not as transaction but as civilization.

The Artists & The Style

Glinsky & Bach: Sculptor and Metalwork Virtuoso.

Vincent Glinsky shaped the narrative sequences in low relief, giving the figures a compact mass and rhythmic energy typical of early Deco sculpture. Oscar Bach realized the panels in gilt bronze, applying the refined technical methods that made him one of the pre-eminent metalworkers of his era.

Together, they produced one of the most complete and coherent decorative cycles in American Art Deco. The vertical registers, crouching beasts, muscular torsos, and geometric borders follow a visual language Ives had studied directly — the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, reconstructed at Berlin's Pergamon Museum in the early twentieth century, and the enameled brick of ancient Chaldea. The source was not general fascination. It was specific research, translated into bronze.

The Builder Elevator Panel — Fred French Building, New York, 1927

The Builder — Building.

Symbolizing skilled craft, technical mastery, and urban growth.

A kneeling figure, powerfully built, bends over his work with concentrated force — the architecture of the city rising behind him.

Where The Merchant carries trade and The Beehiver holds its product, the Builder is defined entirely by his labor. The body is the instrument. Glinsky's modelling here is at its most physical — the weight of the figure fully committed to the act of construction.

Allegory of Design — The Architect — Art Deco Elevator Panel, Fred French Building, New York — 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

The Architect — Building.

Symbolizing design, planning, and architectural vision.

A seated female figure holds a miniature building raised in her hand — the classical pose of the architect-as-creator, the city held and commanded rather than built by hand. Her posture is composed, her gaze inward.

Where the Builder is all physical effort, the Architect is stillness and conception. Together they complete Building's two movements: the idea and the labor that executes it.

The Four Pillars

Industry, Commerce, Finance, and Building.

Each elevator panel embodies one of the four sectors central to the French Companies:
 Industry — strength, engineering, infrastructure
 Commerce — exchange, trade, and refined goods
 Finance — wealth, investment, administration
 Building — architecture, planning, construction

Though allegorical, the imagery was designed for instant legibility. These were the forces shaping New York in the 1920s: the labor that built the skyline, the commerce animating Fifth Avenue, the financial system behind every development, and the architectural vision that defined modern urban life.

The Symbolic Program — Elevator Doors, Fred French Building, New York, 1927.

A complete symbolic program:
Commerce, Industry, Finance, and Building.

The eight gilded panels of the Fred French Building lobby — a sculptural cycle honoring the forces that powered New York's 1920s rise.

The arrangement is graphically balanced, not thematically ordered: the eye moves across figures and ornament before resolving into program. Ives's logic reveals itself slowly — four themes, eight figures, one coherent argument about what a city is and what sustains it.

The most complete Mesopotamian-themed decorative cycle in American Art Deco.

The Kneeling Builder — Art Deco elevator panel, Fred French Building, New York, 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

The Industrial Worker — Industry.

Symbolizing labor, engineering, and the infrastructure of the modern city.

A muscular figure crouches over his work, the full weight of his body engaged.
Where the Architect conceives and the Builder constructs, the Industrial Worker powers the infrastructure beneath both.

New York's modernization — its utilities, transport, and rising skyline — ran on this kind of labor. Glinsky gives it the same dignity as the figures of commerce.

Art Deco allegory of agriculture — The Harvester Industry Elevator Panel, Fred French Building, New York, 1927. Gilt bronze relief by Vincent Glinsky and Oscar Bach.

The Harvester — Industry.

Symbolizing production, agriculture, and foundational industry.

A reclining female figure holds a bundle of wheat and a crescent sickle — the oldest symbols of harvest, drawn directly from the Mesopotamian tradition Ives had studied.

Industry here is not mechanical but elemental. Before the city rises, the land must yield. Glinsky places her with the same authority as the figures of commerce — the foundation that makes everything above possible.

Allegory of Prosperity — The Wealth Bearer — Art Deco Elevator Panel, Fred French Building, New York — 1927 — Glinsky & Bach

The Wealth Bearer — Finance.

Symbolizing prosperity generated through investment and trade.

A seated figure holds a cornucopia and a caduceus — abundance in one hand, the instrument of exchange in the other. The objects are precisely chosen: not wealth accumulated, but wealth in motion.

Finance here is presented as a creative force, not a passive one. The building it occupies was itself a monument to that conviction — Fred French's own statement that capital, directed with ambition, builds cities.

Elevator panel, The Industrial Worker — Industry, Fred French Building, New York, 1927. Gilt bronze relief by Vincent Glinsky, metalwork by Oscar Bach, program by H. Douglas Ives. Photographed by Roberto Bigano.

The Scholar — Finance.

Symbolizing knowledge, law, and administrative order.

A bearded figure holds an open tablet close to his face, absorbed in the text — the only figure in the program who reads, not acts, not carries.

Finance rests on law, record, and precedent. Where The Wealth Bearer puts capital in motion, the Scholar is the system that governs it — the written framework without which no transaction holds.

Two lighting conditions comparison — Elevator door panel, Fred French Building, New York, 1927.

The Elevator Doors Enigma — One Century Apart

The Merchant, from two different elevator doors, as shot — two entirely different surfaces, texture, color, with tones virtually inverted. The gilded coating makes the intent legible: a surface designed to hold light. Which rendition reflects Ives and Glinsky's original intent? The darker reading, however compelling, works against the material logic of the object.

On the Photographs

Eight doors. Forty versions. Three months.

These photographs were made in available light. Eight elevator doors line the lobby, sixty-four panels in total — the same subject, across different doors, produces entirely different surfaces, texture, color, with tones sometimes inverted. The only certain element was the light from above, embedded in the original design. Every additional light source introduced over a century was a question mark. Which one is closer to Ives and Glinsky's original intent was the editorial question.

Each door was documented as a complete object, the individual panels photographed separately. The tool that made this possible was an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Unobtrusive in a working lobby, it allowed multiple versions of each subject to be produced rapidly in the available light of the lobby. Imperfections in the files were compensated by the exceptional rendition of Apple ProRAW on gilt bronze.

Back at the desk, the range of versions — sometimes inverted in light and tone — became a tool for interpretation. The gilded coating makes the intent legible: a surface designed to hold light. The darker readings, however compelling, work against the material logic of the object. Choosing which version best served that intent was a subjective editorial decision. These photographs are an interpretation, a decoding attempt, not a record.

The Merchant and The Wealth Bearer were published full page in FMR Magazine. It was the first time in decades Roberto Bigano had worked without a Multi-Shot Hasselblad reproducing works of art.

CODA — A Declaration in Bronze

The elevator doors of the Fred French Building remain among the best-preserved Art Deco bronzes in Manhattan. The program has not dated — the symbolism is as legible today as it was in 1927.

In an ordinary lobby, the elevator is a utility. Here it is an argument — about what commerce is, what a city requires, and what ambition looks like when cast in gilt bronze.

The Elevator Lobby.
Architecture as procession.

This view reveals the French Building's elevator lobby as a carefully staged passage: marble surfaces, gilded doors, and a richly painted ceiling guiding visitors toward the vertical heart of the building.

Light fixtures and ornament establish a measured rhythm, framing the elevators not as utilities but as destinations. The lobby does not simply connect — it prepares.

About Vincent Glinsky. A short bio.

Vincent Glinsky

Vincent Glinsky

Vincent Glinsky (1895–1975) was a Russian-born American sculptor whose work fused Beaux-Arts training with the emerging modernist vocabulary of the 1920s and 1930s. Educated in Petrograd and later active in New York, he developed a sculptural language marked by precise anatomies, architectural clarity, and an expressive narrative sense ideal for architectural relief.

His most ambitious commission, under the direction of architect H. Douglas Ives, was the bronze program for the Fred French Building on Fifth Avenue (1927) — eight gilded elevator panels, a monumental mailbox, and entrance reliefs forming the most complete Mesopotamian-themed decorative cycle in American Art Deco.

Realized in gilt bronze by master metalworker Oscar Bach, the panels translate four allegorical themes — Industry, Commerce, Finance, and Building — into a unified sculptural sequence of exceptional refinement. They remain the definitive example of his work at architectural scale, and among the finest surviving bronzes of the Art Deco era in New York.

About Oscar Bach. A short bio.

Oscar Bach

Oscar Bach

Oscar Bach

Oscar Bach was a German-born master metalworker whose technical innovation shaped some of the most celebrated interiors of early twentieth-century America. Trained in the European guild tradition, he brought exceptional skill in architectural bronze, iron, and nickel-silver to the United States after emigrating in 1911.

Working from his New York studio, Bach produced metalwork for major skyscrapers, department stores, civic buildings, and luxury residences. His commissions include the Empire State Building — where he executed the monumental Art Deco aluminum mural in the Fifth Avenue lobby — and Radio City Music Hall, where he realized the three eighteen-foot relief sculptures on the 50th Street facade in collaboration with artist Hildreth Meière. His style combined Old World ornament with modern geometric clarity, defining a distinctive branch of American Art Deco. His workshop became synonymous with excellence in decorative metal, leaving a legacy preserved in landmarked interiors across the country.

The City of Opportunity — Art Deco Grilles, Chanin Building, 1929

The City of Opportunity — Art Deco Grilles, Chanin Building, 1929

The City of Opportunity — Art Deco Grilles, Chanin Building, 1929

New York, 1929 — A City at its peak, casting its ambitions in bronze.

Completed in 1929 at the height of New York’s Jazz Age construction boom, the Chanin Building stands as one of the most intellectually ambitious expressions of American Art Deco. Its façade is admired, its lobby celebrated — but its most fully argued artworks are found in the vestibule: eight monumental gilt-bronze radiator grilles, conceived as a symbolic cycle of human development.

Allegory of Success — Gilded Grille, Chanin Building, New York — 1929 — René Paul Chambellan Success — The reward of sustained action. From "The City of Opportunity — Physical Series." A modern symbolic cycle in bronze. Symmetry returns, crowned with a radiant rising form. Success is rendered not as excess but as order — the balanced resolution of struggle. Spirals unfurl, energy flows upward, and the pattern resolves into harmony. Artist: René Paul Chambellan — Contributor: Jacques Delamarre Photographed by Roberto Bigano. NYC Art Deco Archive, Ikonographia. https://www.ikonographia.com/archive/the-new-york-city-art-deco-archive/

Designed by sculptor Rene Paul Chambellan and executed in collaboration with decorator Jacques Delamarre, these grilles form a complete visual philosophy. The program, titled “The City of Opportunity”, translates the psychological journey of a person’s life into geometric abstraction — a belief deeply rooted in the early 20th century fascination with symbolism, psychology, and the expressive power of line.

Art Deco Allegory of Agitation — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Agitation.
The first stirrings of consciousness.
From "The City of Opportunity — Mental Series."

Sharp diagonals and restless lines convey the earliest motions of thought — the doubts, the questions, the uncertainty that precedes understanding. It is the unsettling beginning of inner life.

Art Deco Allegory of Vision — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Vision.
The moment of illumination.
From “The City of Opportunity — Mental Series.”

Here, the composition centers on spiraling curves and backward radiance from the eye — Chambellan’s symbol for introspection. The bowed head of the figure suggests inward concentration, while strong supporting hands denote a gathering of intellectual strength. Vision is not simply sight — it is the birth of clarity.

The Vision Behind the Grilles

Geometry as Thought, Emotion, and Aspiration.

The Chanin program rests on a single conviction: that geometric lines and forms carry emotional meaning as precisely as figurative symbols — if designed with intention. Not decoration. Not ornament. A visual language capable of expressing the inner life of the mind and the outward force of physical action.

The program is divided into two parallel series, mental and physical, each tracing a complete arc of human development. The mental series moves from Agitation — the first, restless stirrings of consciousness — through Vision, Courage, and Achievement. The physical series runs alongside it: Activity, Effort, Endurance, and Success. Together they form a single argument: that the life of the mind and the life of the body are not separate, but two expressions of the same drive.

Each stage is expressed twice — once in a bas-relief figure, once in the grille beneath it. The figure shows a human state. The grille translates it into pure geometry. Spirals, rays, rings, and diagonals carry meanings as specific as words. The two read together as a complete symbolic sentence.

The source is a 1929 article in Architectural Forum, in which Rayne Adams — drawing directly on Jacques Delamarre — explains the program element by element, at the moment of completion. Not interpretation. The artists' own account.

Art Deco Allegory of Courage — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Courage.
The resolve to act despite resistance.
From "The City of Opportunity — Mental Series."

In this panel, Chambellan visualizes determination as flowing arcs and tightly woven diagonals. The struggle is present, but so is forward momentum. Obstacles appear as counter-lines, yet purpose pushes through them. It is the geometry of bravery.

Art Deco Allegory of Achievement — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Achievement.
The fruition of thought.
From "The City of Opportunity — Mental Series."

A rising sun, concentric spirals, and balanced symmetry mark the culmination of mental effort. The pattern is no longer restless but ordered, luminous, and harmonious. Achievement is not finality, but the moment when intention becomes reality.

The Artists Behind the Vision

Rene Paul Chambellan — Sculptor of the American Skyline.
Trained in low-relief technique, Chambellan brought to the Chanin commission a sculptor's understanding of how geometric line carries weight and movement — how a spiral tightens under pressure, how a diagonal conveys force. The nickel-silver elevator doors at 70 Pine Street and the Atlas modeling at Rockefeller Center place him among the defining contributors to New York Art Deco metalwork. The Chanin grilles are his most sustained intellectual work: a symbolic cycle that translates human psychology into architectural geometry.

Jacques Delamarre — The Program's Architect.
Delamarre's role was conceptual. Where Chambellan gave the grilles their sculptural form, Delamarre constructed the narrative — the two-series structure, the sequence from Agitation to Success, the decision to run mental and physical development as parallel arguments. The Architectural Forum article that survives as the primary document of the Chanin cycle is, in effect, Delamarre's account of his own design thinking.

Together they produced something with no direct equivalent in New York Deco: a complete symbolic program in which every geometric element carries a specific, intended meaning.

Art Deco Allegory of Activity — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Activity.
The beginning of physical exertion. From "The City of Opportunity — Physical Series."

Interlocking rays and rising diagonals give this panel a kinetic rhythm — the first outward expression of purpose in the world. It is the geometry of initiation, the body waking into movement.

Art Deco Allegory of Effort — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Effort.
The struggle against resistance.
From "The City of Opportunity — Physical Series."

Here, spirals tighten, diagonals collide, and curves appear compressed, as if bearing weight. The composition visualizes the tension between aspiration and the obstacles that define it. Effort is the architecture of perseverance.

Beyond Symbolism — The Human Story in Bronze

Viewed as a whole, the Chanin grilles offer something rare in architectural sculpture: a complete narrative of human development told through pure form. Geometry carries emotion. Abstraction carries argument. Eight panels, two sequences, one program — conceived in 1929 and still precise.

Nearly a century later, the panels hold their strange mixture of optimism and introspection — a Jazz Age faith in progress captured in metal. Chambellan's question was not rhetorical. It is there in every rising line, every spiraling curve, every radiant burst: what does it mean to strive? The eight grilles are the answer.

Art Deco Allegory of Endurance — gilded bronze grille by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Endurance.
The steady continuation of labor.
From "The City of Opportunity — Physical Series."

This grille stands tall and monumental — a symbolic skyscraper of human resilience. Vertical lines run uninterrupted through the panel, marking the steady, disciplined continuation of work. Its strength lies in repetition, in the refusal to break.

bule, New York, 1929.

Success.
The reward of sustained action.
From "The City of Opportunity — Physical Series."

Symmetry returns, crowned with a radiant rising form. Success is rendered not as excess but as order — the balanced resolution of struggle. Spirals unfurl, energy flows upward, and the pattern resolves into harmony.

The Chanin Building Symbolic Program

Eight Grilles, Eight Bas-Reliefs — A Dual Expression of Human Development

For decades, the Chanin grilles were admired but not understood. Visitors saw geometric patterns in bronze, felt their visual power, but couldn't decode their meaning. The symbolic program remained partially locked.

The key appeared in May 1929, just months after the building opened: a six-page article in The Architectural Forum written by Rayne Adams, featuring direct explanation from Jacques Delamarre—the collaborator who conceived the narrative structure with Chambellan.

This wasn't later interpretation. It was the artists explaining their own work at the moment of completion.

For Ikonographia's research, this text functioned as a Rosetta Stone: it allowed the grilles to be read as their creators intended, aligning what we see in the bronze with what Delamarre and Chambellan meant to express.

Vision bas-relief by René Paul Chambellan, Chanin Building vestibule, New York, 1929.

Vision Bas-relief.
The moment of illumination.
From "The City of Opportunity — Mental Series."

Excerpts From "Architectural Forum", May 1929 — Primary Source: Jacques Delamarre

The entire article is included in the downloadable document. What follows are the passages that most directly illuminate the symbolic program.


The Philosophical Foundation: Geometry as Emotional Language

Why geometric abstraction? Why not traditional allegory?

Rayne Adams begins by defending the decision to use pure geometric forms rather than conventional symbolism:

"Most designs are conceived and executed with little thought... The common run of decorative design follows along no intellectual line of effort which is in any way exacting. If we have to portray winter, we picture it as 'a weak old king who feels, like Lear, upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears.' And all select a bluebird as a symbol for happiness."

This conventional symbolism, Adams argues, is "labored" and "lacks subtlety." But there's another path:

"The dominant idea which they have sought to set forth is the significance of geometric lines and their capacity to symbolize emotions and abstractions of thought and deed... A consensus of opinion has established certain characteristics which are associated with types of line and of form. For vexation or perplexity we all scribble a confused scrawl; the flowing curve suggests ease and grace; the circle suggests completeness."

This is the conceptual core: geometric forms can carry emotional meaning just as powerfully as figurative symbols—if designed with intention.


The Structure: Two Parallel Series

Each grille corresponds to a stage of human development, divided into mental and physical progression:

"In these reliefs and grilles they have envisaged this life under two commonly accepted categories,—that which sets forth the physical life and that which sets forth the mental life."

"Certain phases of development under each category are presented by a panel figure in relief supplemented by a grille design placed immediately beneath."

The Mental Series (consciousness developing):

  1. Agitation — "the first conscious stirrings; the first doubts, the first questions and uncertainties"
  2. Vision — "the birth of conscious planning and the formation of a definite and compelling ideal"
  3. Courage — "the man at work,—following out, with firm resolution and steady purpose, those ideals which are his, beset by obstructions, yet achieving"
  4. Achievement — "the fulfillment of his work"

The Physical Series (action manifesting):

  • Activity, Effort and Endurance, and Success — "exemplifies in its way the characteristics presented by the series showing the mental development"

How to Read the Grilles: The Case of Vision

Adams provides a detailed reading of one grille to show how the geometric language works:

"In the relief, showing a crouching figure, we see the vacant look,—'the light drawn backwards from the eye'—betokening introspection and concentration; the bowed head characteristic of the thinker, and the supporting hands,—that gesture which has always something pathetic about it—as though the strong hands of the body were giving support to the troubled mind."

The corresponding grille translates this into pure geometry:

"The mental world of this thinker is symbolically represented by the spiral convolutions, expanding in wider and wider sweeps, while his inspirations or impulses for action are marked by the indented, radial lines."

"The deepest indentation marks the definitive and determining inspiration under the aegis of which he will, for good or ill, follow through his life to some significant end."

"The grille design supplementary to this relief bears out this thought. The dominant inspiration is represented by the continuous ray, which, passing through the barriers of doubt and ignorance, pursues its unbroken way. Other inspirations, other compulsions, are represented by the non-continuous rays; these are less perfect. The tangent rings of successively increasing diameter represent the successive phases of his life."

This is how the system works: each geometric element—spirals, rays, rings, indentations—carries specific symbolic meaning, allowing complex psychological states to be expressed through abstract pattern.


The Grilles and Reliefs as Unified Language

Critically, the grilles are not decoration—they are translation:

"The supplementary grille panels, wholly geometric in conception, present a symbolism which, interpreted, bears out the meaning of the corresponding relief figures."

The bas-relief shows a human figure embodying an emotional state. The grille beneath translates that same state into geometric abstraction. Together, they form a complete symbolic language: one figurative, one abstract, both expressing the same idea.


Adams' Final Assessment

Despite the intellectual complexity of the program, Adams judges the work on aesthetic grounds:

"Whether the union has brought forth progeny whose aesthetic quality will stand, is something for the critics to decide. As an expression of a method of achievement, the work may be characterized assuredly as not lacking in the spirit of adventure."

"For my own part, I confess that I have rarely looked upon relief figures which have struck me as more worthy of praise than these. To say that they are masterly is not enough; they hold, for those of us who care for abstractions, what is far more important,—something of genius."


Primary Source Document

The complete 1929 article by Rayne Adams is available as an attached document for researchers who wish to read the full philosophical argument and additional symbolic details.

[Download: "The Reliefs and Grilles of the Chanin Building Vestibules" – Architectural Forum, May 1929]


What this text provides:

A contemporary explanation of the grilles by their creators, allowing Ikonographia's photographic documentation to be read with the precision the artists intended—not through later guesswork, but through direct alignment between visual evidence and original meaning.

Architectural Forum, May 1929 — Chanin Building reliefs and grilles by René Paul Chambellan, with Jacques Delamarre as collaborator.

Architectural Forum, May 1929

Contemporary publication illustrating René Chambellan’s reliefs and grilles for the Chanin Building, New York.
Here the symbolic program of the vestibule bas-reliefs and grilles is explained directly by Jacques Delamarre, the collaborator responsible for articulating their narrative structure.
It is a sort of "Rosetta Stone" to decipher the complex project of "The City of Opportunity,”

CODA — Seventy Pine Street: A Related Masterwork

Another remarkable Chambellan work— The "Evolution of Fuel" Elevator Doors

Though separate from the Chanin cycle, the nickel-silver Evolution of Fuel elevator doors at 70 Pine Street deserve their own reading — created for the Cities Service Oil Company.

Chambellan was a master at exploring new metal alloys. Here he worked in nickel silver (German silver) — a corrosion-resistant copper-nickel-zinc alloy prized in Art Deco design for its silvery-white luster, warm tone and durability. Despite its name, it contains no actual silver; the nickel provides the distinctive metallic sheen.

On the right, a woman holds an antique oil lamp — a symbol of the past.
On the left, a man grips an electric turbine — an emblem of the future.
Together they form a transition between eras — a direct counterpart to the philosophical program of the Chanin grilles.

The elevator doors shows a pair of nickel-silver reliefs

The Evolution of Fuel  Elevator Doors — 1931 circa — by Rene Paul Chambellan — 70 Pine St., New York

Past and future rendered in nickel silver — the material that made the transition visible.

FMR Magazine — Gotham Deco

Photographs from this page were published in FMR Magazine Winter Solstice 2024.

"Gotham Deco — Modern Metropolis. This Was Tomorrow" — published in FMR Magazine with an essay by Anthony W. Robins and photographs by Roberto Bigano — documents New York Art Deco as a complete interior program: the Chanin Building radiator grilles, the Fred French Building elevator panels, the light and sound installations of Rockefeller Center, and the decorative vocabulary that ran through an entire generation of Manhattan architecture. A cover and twenty-four pages.

Robins is the pre-eminent authority on New York Art Deco. President of the Art Deco Society and author of "New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham's Jazz Age Architecture" — widely cited as the definitive guide to the subject.

FMR was founded in Milan in 1982 by Franco Maria Ricci. For four decades, among curators, collectors, and art historians on both sides of the Atlantic, FMR set the standard for visual scholarship and for the most demanding editorial photography.
Jacqueline Kennedy called it the most beautiful magazine in the world.

Copyright, links and credits

Photography, Copyright & Credits

All photographs © Ikonographia / Roberto Bigano — All Rights Reserved.
These images are part of the Ikonographia Visual Archives: New York City Art Deco Collection.

Terms of Use (Summary)

The images presented in this archive are copyrighted and available for licensed use only through Ikonographia Visual Archives.

You may not download, reproduce, publish, or distribute these images without a valid license. For commercial or editorial licensing, please refer to the product pages or contact Ikonographia directly. A full explanation of licensing terms is available in the Shop / Licensing Information section under "Ikonographia — Standard License" and "Ikonographia — Merchandising & Product Use Licenses"

Artwork & Building Attribution

Designed for the Chanin Building, 122 East 42nd Street, New York City, by sculptor Rene Paul Chambellan and executed in collaboration with decorator Jacques Delamarre, these grilles form a complete visual philosophy. The program, titled “The City of Opportunity”, translates the psychological journey of a person’s life into geometric abstraction — a belief deeply rooted in the early 20th century fascination with symbolism, psychology, and the expressive power of line.

Copyright Status Clarification

Building & Artwork:
The architectural design of this buildingis in the public domain under U.S. copyright law. Buildings constructed before the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act (1990) are not protected as architectural works, and their exteriors and interiors may be freely photographed.

Photographs:
All photographs on this page, however, are copyrighted works of Ikonographia / Roberto Bigano and require a license for any reuse.

Ikonographia Mission Statement

Ikonographia is committed to the accurate documentation, preservation, and ethical dissemination of twentieth-century visual culture.

Archival Notes

These photographs were produced as part of Ikonographia’s ongoing documentation of significant examples of twentieth-century visual culture. Image preparation includes controlled lighting, accurate color management, and perspective correction to preserve architectural integrity and material detail.

Further Reading - Selected Sources

• FMR Magazine No. 12, Winter Solstice 2024 — "Gotham Deco" — Special issue devoted to the Art Deco transformation of 1920s New York, with contributions by Anthony W. Robbins and photography by Roberto Bigano. Cover and 24 pages featuring comprehensive documentation of the Chanin Building radiator grilles, the Fred French Building elevator panels and polychrome ceilings, the Light and Sound sculpture at Rockefeller Center, and a curated selection of the city's finest Art Deco interiors.

• Anthony W. Robbins, New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture.
• David Stravitz, The Chrysler Building: Creating a New York Icon Day by Day.
• Cervin Robinson & Rosemarie Haag Bletter, Skyscraper Style: Art Deco New York.
• Christopher Gray (archives), The New York Times, “Streetscapes” columns.
• New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission reports (Fred F. French Building).
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Digital Collections (historic metalwork and architectural ornament references).

Acknowledgments

Ikonographia gratefully acknowledges the institutions, archivists, scholars, and architectural historians whose research and preservation efforts help illuminate the cultural significance of New York’s Art Deco heritage.

Agitation. Gilded Bronze Radiator Grill in the vestibule of the Chanin Building. By Rene Paul Chambellan 1929.

Achievement.
The fruition of thought.
From "The City of Opportunity — Mental Series."

A rising sun, concentric spirals, and balanced symmetry mark the culmination of mental effort.
The pattern is no longer restless but ordered, luminous, and harmonious. Achievement is not finality, but the moment when intention becomes reality.

About René Chambellan – A short bio

Rene Paul Chambellan in his Studio

Chambellan at work in his studio.

René Chambellan (1893–1955)

René Paul Chambellan was a French-born sculptor and modeler active in New York during the late 1920s. Trained in architectural ornament and low-relief techniques, he contributed to the emergence of the French Modern Style—later known as Zig-Zag Moderne or Art Deco—translating its geometric elegance into architectural sculpture.

His collaboration with Jacques Delamarre on the Chanin Building’s Mental and Physical Series stands as his most distinctive achievement, blending expressive figuration with stylized geometric structure.

Beyond the Chanin commission, Chambellan also contributed sculptural modeling to major projects of the period, including elements for the famous Atlas statue (1937) at Rockefeller Center. His work exemplifies the refined craftsmanship and symbolic vocabulary that shaped New York’s Jazz Age architecture.

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