Brooklyn-born architect William Van Alen, who had a reputation for progressive, colorful design, met Chrysler’s challenge with a seventy-seven-story building, the first in the world to surpass a height of one thousand feet.
Instead of the tall, bland, rectangular boxes that had begun to colonize the city, inventive and dynamic forms began to lend interest and variety to the Manhattan skyline.
The ordinance also focused attention on the summit of a building.
The Chrysler Building (1930) surpassed the Eiffel Tower to become the world's tallest structure.
Today it represents the finest of the Art Deco style and indeed is probably the most beautiful Art Deco building in the world.
The skyscraper no longer a copied gothic architecture (more common in Downtown Manhattan), but incorporated a current architecture style appropriate for its time of design and construction.
As if mocking the ancient gothic style of other skyscrapers, the Chrysler Building adds in gargoyles and decorative top that ends in a spire reaching towards the sky.
The tower ends in a beautiful, tapered stainless steel crown that supports the famous spire at its peak.
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