Chrysler Building Philosophy

The Chrysler Building, seen in figure 1, was built for Walter Chrysler to be the headquarters for the automobile company, the Chrysler Corporation. It was built on 405 Lexington Avenue, New York, in the United States of America. Put into historical context the construction began on the 19th of September 1928, a few months prior to the stock market crash of 1929. It was the age of ‘flapper girls’, jazz music, prohibition and ‘speak-easies’. “Throughout the 1920s a long boom took stock prices to peaks never before seen.” There was an exuberant expression of life in the 1920 prior to the stock market crash. From the time it was completed the Chrysler Building, measuring 319 meters, was the tallest building in
Figure 1
The Chrysler Building the …show more content…
Epistemology falls under metaphysical philosophy and is defined as “a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.” The Chrysler Building can be used as an example to show the epistemology of designers of the time. Epistemology has to do with the “nature of knowledge” and what people believe to be the truth.This can be linked to the philosophical beliefs of the modernist designers and what they believed was the purest ‘truth’ of design and what that looked like. Epistemology is concerned with the “nature and scope of knowledge” and is also referred to as the “theory of knowledge.” The Pioneer Phase had “a theological intensity about it: ‘A great epoch has begun, / There exists a new …show more content…
Serving no purpose other than facilitating access to the spire.” The top floors are, in essence, only there so that the decorative exterior can exist.
The Pioneer Phase had to do with the machine age and mass production, therefore the production and manufacturing of Chrysler automobiles falls under the Pioneer Phase. “Van Alen chose motifs appropriate to the machine age, particularly the automobile.” The building was aimed to show-off the success of the Chrysler Corporation. The Pioneer Phase was between 1929 and 1933, the same time the Chrysler Building was being built. The three main Pioneer categories include graphics, furniture, and architecture. Van Alen’s design falling into the latter most dominant category.
The stainless steel used resembles the “polished chrome of a brand new car.” Other decoration on the building resembles elements found on the Chrysler automobile such as the “stylised American eagle heads… winged forms
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