CBS Building

Office

51 West 52nd Street, Manhattan, New York, U.S.

1965

491 feet (150 m)

The CBS Building, widely known by its nickname Black Rock, was designed by Eero Saarinen as his only skyscraper commission, completed in 1965 in midtown Manhattan several years after Saarinen's death in 1961, with the project finished under his former partners at Roche and Dinkeloo. The tower is clad in dark gray granite quarried in Canada, giving the building its nickname and a somber, monolithic appearance distinct from the glass and steel curtain walls common among its Manhattan office tower contemporaries. Saarinen designed the building's structure around triangular concrete piers set close together around the tower's perimeter, a load-bearing system that eliminated the need for interior columns near the windows and left the ground floor largely open beneath the tower's mass. The building has served as the headquarters of the CBS broadcasting network since its completion, a rare instance of a major American media company commissioning a purpose-built skyscraper as its corporate headquarters. Its dark, severe massing and lack of ornament made it one of the more austere and distinctive additions to the Manhattan skyline of the 1960s.

The "Black Rock" nickname is derived from the design of its facade, which consists of angled dark-gray granite piers alternating with dark-tinted glass.

The "Black Rock" nickname is derived from the design of its facade, which consists of angled dark-gray granite piers alternating with dark-tinted glass.

The "Black Rock" nickname is derived from the design of its facade, which consists of angled dark-gray granite piers alternating with dark-tinted glass.