Harvey Wiley Corbett (January 8, 1873 – April 21, 1954) was an American architect primarily known for skyscraper and office building designs in New York and London, and his advocacy of tall buildings and modernism in architecture.
Following his graduation in 1900, he started work in the firm of Cass Gilbert.[2] One of Corbett's early commissions during the 1910s was for the landmark Springfield Municipal Group, two large municipal buildings with a tower in Springfield, Massachusetts, in partnership with Francis Livingston Pell, a name partner in the architectural firm of Pell & Corbett.[2][3]
As part of the firm of Helmle & Corbett, Harvey Wiley Corbett designed Bush Tower, a 30-story Neo-Gothic skyscraper built for the Bush Terminal Company on 42nd St. near Times Square in Manhattan. The tower, "with its prominent position and slight setbacks in buff, white and black brick, marked his début as an influential skyscraper designer."[2]
Corbett's next major commission was in London, where he again worked for Irving T. Bush and the Bush Terminal Co. and was the architect for Bush House, a massive and essentially American-style office building built within the limits of strict London building codes.[4][5]
Later in the 1920s, Corbett was part of one of the three firms that designed Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.[6] Corbett, however, left the Rockefeller Center project in 1928, so he could work on plans for the Metropolitan Life North Building, designed as a 100-story skyscraper and the world's tallest building,[7][8] but eventually built as a 32-story tower during the Great Depression.[9]
Corbett continued to design some structures during the Great Depression, including the massive New York City Criminal Courts Building in Manhattan, the northern tower of which is the Manhattan Detention Center, known as The Tombs. The complex was designed with Charles B. Meyers and completed in 1941.[10][11]
In 1922, Corbett commissioned delineator and architect Hugh Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of New York's City's zoning law, which he saw as a "setback." These four drawings would later be used in Ferriss's 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow.[12] By demonstrating how architecture might evolve, Corbett's commission and Ferriss's book continue to influence popular culture; the Gotham City of Batman and the cities seen in the 2004 movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow[13] both were influenced by Corbett and Ferriss.
In the late 1920s, the impact of skyscrapers on cities and downtowns was still hotly debated. Harvey Corbett defended the benefits of tall buildings against skyscraper detractors in articles published in The New York Times Magazine and National Municipal Journal in 1927.[14]
In 1930, Corbett described modernism in architecture as a "freeing of the shackles of style that for years have forced architects to erect duplicates of Grecian temples for bank buildings, regardless of modern requirements for light, air, and utility."[3]
Corbett shaped the course of architecture by heading the architectural committee of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. He was also chairman of the advisory committee of architects that created the theme for the modernistic 1939 New York World's Fair.[3] Both fairs were influential examples of modern architecture.
^"Madison Sq. Tower To Rise 100 Stories; Metropolitan Life Will Erect the Tallest Office Structure for Own Use on Whole Block (November 3, 1929), The New York Times, p. N1
^Wolfe, Gerard R. (2003) New York, 15 Walking Tours: An Architectural Guide to the Metropolis. (New York: McGraw-Hill Professional (ISBN0071411852 ), p.102
^Ferriss, Hugh. The Metropolis of Tomorrow (with essay by Carol Willis). New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1986. Reprint of 1929 edition. ISBN0-910413-11-8
