{"id":965,"date":"2009-04-05T21:31:14","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T01:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/judykat.com\/ken\/?p=965"},"modified":"2009-04-05T21:31:14","modified_gmt":"2009-04-06T01:31:14","slug":"constraints-metaphor-and-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/constraints-metaphor-and-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"Constraints, metaphor and beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/helveticafanatic\/2637683735\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-content\/uploads\/public\/blogimages\/rockefeller_center_at_night.png\" title=\"Rockefeller Center by helveticafanatic on flickr\" class=\"alignnone\" width=\"300\" height=\"557\" \/><\/a>Ray Hood&#8217;s RCA\/GE Building is the the tallest tower in Rockefeller Center.<\/p>\n<p>Constructed in the depths of the depression the building derives beauty from a simple metaphor for the worker &#8212; carrying people efficiently and safely to a well-lit space. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;As each elevator shaft ended,&#8221; Hood explained in <em>Architectural Forum<\/em>, we cut the building back to maintain the same 27 feet from the core of the building to the exterior walls. By doing so we have eliminated every dark corner. &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shelfari.com\/books\/313238?widgetId=88506\">Great Fortune<\/a> by Daniel Okrent<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hood&#8217;s design emerged from a set of constraints: the number of elevators required, the achievable height of an elevator shaft, and the distance one can sit from a window in New York and still receive natural light. The resulting setbacks thin the tower as it rises achieving elegance without ornament and lightness despite a massive stone facade. <\/p>\n<p>What an achievement for a man who died at 53 while Rockefeller Center was still under construction.<\/p>\n<p>But even the most expressive, inevitable metaphor loses coherence across implementers and over time. His fellow project architects crafted some blocky companion towers. Inside &#8220;30 Rock&#8221;, I&#8217;d bet seventy years of renovation have thrust some employees into the shadows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ray Hood&#8217;s RCA\/GE Building is the the tallest tower in Rockefeller Center. Constructed in the depths of the depression the building derives beauty from a simple metaphor for the worker &#8212; carrying people efficiently and safely to a well-lit space. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/constraints-metaphor-and-beauty\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[612,17,159,611,614,613,55],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software-development","tag-daniel-okrent","tag-design","tag-new-york","tag-ray-hood","tag-rcage-building","tag-rockefeller-center","tag-usability"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/rockefeller_center_at_night.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1060,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions\/1060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}