EMPIRE STATE BUILDING ARCHITECTURE: WILLIAM F. LAMB AND THE RACE TO THE SKY

The Empire State Building is probably the single most recognisable skyscraper on earth — a 102-storey, 1,250-foot Art Deco tower designed by William F. Lamb of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, and raised on the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in barely thirteen months. Completed in 1931, at the height of a fierce three-way race for the title of world's tallest building, it held that record for nearly forty years and remains, for many, the definitive image of the skyscraper itself.

It belongs to the great burst of American Art Deco skyscraper design that transformed the Manhattan skyline in the years around 1930 — a style shaped as much by New York's 1916 zoning law, with its mandatory setbacks, as by any single architect's aesthetic instinct.

The Empire State Building is a National Historic Landmark and a New York City individual landmark, and remains a fully occupied office tower and observation deck today.

  • Written by Gavin Paisley, director & model-maker at Chisel & Mouse based in Sussex, England.
  • Last updated: 15-Sep-26

Photograph by Sam Valadi, licensed under CC A 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Empire State facade architectural scale model

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What is the Empire State Building?

The Empire State Building is a 102-storey Art Deco skyscraper at 350 Fifth Avenue, between 33rd and 34th Streets in Midtown Manhattan. Commissioned by Empire State Inc., a venture led by financier John J. Raskob with former New York governor Alfred E. Smith as its public face, it was designed by William F. Lamb and built by Starrett Bros. & Eken on the site of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Demolition of the Waldorf-Astoria began on 17 March 1930, and the new building opened to the public on 1 May 1931 — an overall construction period of about thirteen months, at an average pace of four and a half storeys a week.

At 1,250 feet to the roof (1,454 feet including its antenna), it was the world's tallest building from 1931 until the completion of the World Trade Center's North Tower in 1970, and it remains one of the most visited buildings in the world today, combining office space with a public observation deck.

Facts panel

Office skyscraper and observation deck, Midtown Manhattan, New York City.

  • Architect: William F. Lamb, of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon
  • Built for: Empire State Inc. (John J. Raskob, Alfred E. Smith)
  • Builder: Starrett Bros. & Eken
  • Constructed: 17 March 1930 – 1 May 1931 (approximately 13 months)
  • Address: 350 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York, NY 10118
  • Materials: Steel frame, Indiana limestone and granite facade, stainless steel and aluminium trim
  • Architectural style: Art Deco
  • Height: 1,250 ft to roof / 1,454 ft including antenna; 102 storeys
  • Current use: Office tower and public observation deck
  • Designation: National Historic Landmark (1986); New York City individual landmark (1981)

Architect: William F. Lamb

William Frederick Lamb (1883–1952) trained at Williams College, Columbia's School of Architecture, and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before joining Carrère & Hastings, where he met his future partner Richmond Shreve. The two left in 1924 to found Shreve & Lamb, joined in 1929 by Arthur Loomis Harmon to form Shreve, Lamb & Harmon — Lamb serving as the firm's principal designer, Shreve as its administrator.

Working to Raskob's brief of 36 million cubic feet of rentable space, a $60 million budget, and a fixed 1 May 1931 leasing deadline, Lamb designed the building from the top down, reportedly working through sixteen successive massing studies before settling on the final scheme. He is said to have drawn on two of his own earlier commissions for inspiration — the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Cincinnati's Carew Tower — reworking their stepped massing at a far larger scale. The Empire State Building remains the defining work of Lamb's career and of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's practice.

Architectural character: setbacks, streamlining, and the mooring mast

The Empire State Building's stepped silhouette was, in large part, a legal requirement: New York's 1916 Zoning Resolution mandated setbacks on tall buildings to preserve light and air at street level, and Lamb turned that constraint into the building's defining visual rhythm — a limestone-clad shaft rising through a sequence of gradual setbacks to a slender, streamlined tower, and finally to its distinctive spire. The lower floors are faced in Indiana limestone and granite, with stainless steel and aluminium used for the window spandrels and trim, giving the tower's vertical lines their characteristic gleam.

At the very top, the original design incorporated a mooring mast, intended to allow airships to dock and disembark passengers directly into the building — a genuinely ambitious piece of Jazz-Age futurism that never worked in practice, defeated by unpredictable updrafts around the tower. The mast survives today as the building's iconic spire, since 1976 illuminated in changing colours for holidays and civic occasions. Inside, the triple-height entrance lobby is finished in polished marble beneath an aluminium relief mural depicting the building itself — a piece of Art Deco design turned in on its own subject.

Our architectural sculpture focuses on the Fifth Avenue entrance — the columned ground-floor doorway through which most visitors first encounter the building, rather than the tower above it.

Photograph by Daniel Penfield, licensed under CC A-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

History: built in a race, and in a Depression

The Empire State Building's origins lie in a personal rivalry: John J. Raskob, a General Motors executive and financier, was determined to outdo Walter Chrysler, whose Chrysler Building had briefly claimed the title of world's tallest building in 1930. Raskob assembled Empire State Inc., with former New York governor Alfred E. Smith as the project's public figurehead, and set Shreve, Lamb & Harmon to work on a design that could beat Chrysler's tower decisively.

Construction proceeded at a pace that remains remarkable a century later: using as many as 3,400 workers a day and extensive prefabrication of steel components, the building rose at roughly four and a half storeys a week, with the first thirty storeys completed before some ground-floor details had even been finalised. It opened on schedule on 1 May 1931, in a ceremony presided over by President Herbert Hoover, who lit the building via a switch in Washington, D.C.

The building's early years were shadowed by the Great Depression: with much of Manhattan's office market in collapse, large sections stood vacant for years, earning it the nickname the "Empty State Building." Its fortunes recovered over subsequent decades, though history intervened again on 28 July 1945, when a B-25 bomber, lost in heavy fog, struck the 79th floor, killing fourteen people. The building was repaired and reopened within days. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1986, having already been designated a New York City landmark in 1981, and in 2007 it topped the American Institute of Architects' poll of America's favourite piece of architecture.

Cultural significance

Few buildings anywhere carry the cultural weight of the Empire State Building. It has appeared in countless films and photographs as visual shorthand for New York City itself, and its observation decks have drawn visitors from around the world for nearly a century. Its construction, completed at astonishing speed in the depths of the Depression, has come to stand as a symbol of American ambition and resilience — a building that, more than any other, defined what a skyscraper could look like, and one whose silhouette remains instantly recognisable on skylines, postcards, and screens the world over.

The model-maker's lens

  • Focus — the Fifth Avenue entrance itself: the columned doorway and its immediate surround, rather than the tower rising above it. This is the building's Art Deco detailing at its most intimate, human scale.
  • Detail — the etched nickel-silver door and its fluted columns pick out the fine vertical lines of Lamb's stonework and metalwork against the plaster.
  • How it reads at small scale — extremely well; isolating the entrance lets the crisp geometry of its columns and doorway read as a piece of sculpture in its own right, rather than being lost against the scale of the full tower.
  • How to display — alongside our other Art Deco models — the Hoover Building, Battersea Power Station, Cincinnati Union Terminal — as part of a collection tracing the style across two continents; or as a standalone centrepiece.
  • How we made it — we created the CAD model from photographs, 3D printed the master pattern, created a single simple box mould, cast in pigmented white plaster and added an etched nickel-silver door and column detailing.

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Visiting the Empire State Building

The Empire State Building stands at 350 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, between 33rd and 34th Streets, a short walk from Herald Square and the Fifth Avenue shopping district. The Fifth Avenue entrance is the building's principal facade and the best vantage point for appreciating Lamb's Art Deco detailing at ground level; the building's observation decks, on the 86th and 102nd floors, are open to the public and offer some of the most famous views in New York.

Frequently asked questions about the Empire State Building

Who designed the Empire State Building?

It was designed by William F. Lamb of the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, who served as the project's principal architect, working through sixteen successive design studies before settling on the final massing.

When was the Empire State Building built?

Construction began on 17 March 1930, following demolition of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on the site, and the building opened to the public on 1 May 1931 — a construction period of roughly thirteen months.

How tall is the Empire State Building?

It stands 1,250 feet (381 m) to the roof, or 1,454 feet (443 m) including its antenna, across 102 storeys. It was the world's tallest building from 1931 until 1970.

What architectural style is the Empire State Building?

It is a landmark example of Art Deco architecture, its stepped massing shaped by New York's 1916 zoning law, faced in Indiana limestone and granite with stainless steel and aluminium trim.

Is the Empire State Building a protected landmark?

Yes. It was designated a New York City individual landmark in 1981 and a National Historic Landmark in 1986, and was voted America's favourite piece of architecture in a 2007 American Institute of Architects poll

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