Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower
- Architect
- Napoleon LeBrun
- Year
- 1909
- Style
- Renaissance Revival
- City
- Manhattan, NY
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, at 1 Madison Avenue in the Flatiron District, is a 700-foot skyscraper designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and built between 1905 and 1909 as the headquarters of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Inspired by St Mark's Campanile in Venice, it was the tallest building in the world until 1913.
the building
The campanile top. Modeled on St Mark's Campanile in Venice, the tower's crown features four clock faces, four bells, and lighted beacons, translating a Venetian civic landmark into the silhouette of a corporate office tower.
The Home Office Complex. The tower is paired with a shorter east wing occupying the rest of the block, together forming the Metropolitan Home Office Complex along with the North Building across 24th Street, which originally served as Metropolitan Life's headquarters.
the style
Napoleon LeBrun designed the tower in the Renaissance Revival style, drawing directly on the Venetian campanile tradition to give an insurance company's headquarters the civic gravity of an Italian bell tower.
More on Renaissance Revivalthe architect
Napoleon LeBrun led the firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, which designed the Metropolitan Life Tower as one of its major commissions, producing the tallest building in the world at the time of its 1909 completion.
significance
The tower is a National Historic Landmark and NYC Individual Landmark (LP-01530), also listed on the National Register of Historic Places and New York State Register of Historic Places; it was designated a NYC Individual Landmark on June 13, 1989. Since 2015 it has held a 273-room luxury hotel.
nearby
- Metropolitan Life North Building
- One Madison
- Flatiron Building
- New York Life Insurance Company Building
- Scribner Building
- Sixty-Ninth Regiment Armory