ABSTRACT
This spatial generosity was quickly adopted as an economic asset and was soon transformed into a building incentive mechanism. In the case of Seagram Plaza by multiplying its recipe all over the city, the so-called bonus plaza mechanism generated standard and underused spaces, except for a few notable projects. The misuse of a seductive legal mechanism lacked the architectural quality of its promising predecessors, Lever House and Seagram. The book investigates this new mode of production of open space in the city through the singular spatial sequence in the Downtown Financial District with the confluence of the projects for One Chase Manhattan Plaza, Midland Bank and One Liberty building.
