page_title: Springs Mills Building
section_title: Facade
hierarchical_section_title: Springs Mills Building / Design / Facade
caption_attribution_description: English: 104 West 40th Street (also known as w:Springs Mills Building) in Manhattan, New York, seen in October 2019
context_page_description: The Springs Mills Building is a 21-story office building at 104 West 40th Street in Manhattan, New York City, just west of Sixth Avenue. The Modernist building sits on an L-shaped lot that extends back to 39th Street and rises to a thin glass hexagonal tower. One of the earliest examples of the International Style in New York, the building was designed by the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz and built in 1961–1963. The building was designated an official city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2010.
context_section_description: The building's facade is an early example of a glass curtain wall, a non-structural facade in front of the steel structural frame. Its design incorporated elements from similar nearby projects such as the United Nations Secretariat Building at First Avenue (1947), the Lever House at Park Avenue (1950–1952), and the Corning Glass Building at Fifth Avenue (1959). The Secretariat Building had used double-glazed green-tinted glass, while the Lever House used both glazed fixed-panel windows as well as interspersed sections of tinted-green and dark-green glass. The Corning Glass Building, another Harris and Abramovitz project, used sheets of "translucent glass in front of painted metal panels" as well as interlocking mullions made of aluminum.
  The Springs Mills Building's elements were most similar to the Corning Glass Building's, using mullions in two shades of gray to subdivide the facade into a grid with vertical bays. There are two windows per bay on each floor except for the first, and below each window in the space between each floor, there are two spandrels that align with the windows. Vertical silver mullions, which separate each of the bays, protrude slightly from the facade. As with the Corning Glass Building, these projecting mullions have the impression of a "elegant vertical direction" and also serve as anchors for window washers' carts. The remaining mullions are dark-gray and are flush with the facade. Vertical dark-gray mullions separate the windows as well as the spandrels in each bay, while horizontal mullions delineate the boundaries between the windows and the mullions. The window panes are anti-glare panels created by PPG Industries (formerly the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company), who claimed that the panes would absorb heat and reduce fatigue to the eyes.
  The penthouse level contains mechanical rooms, which are located behind a facade of louvered metal panels.
caption: The lower portion of the facade. Vertical silver mullions can be seen here, protruding from the building. The black-colored spandrels are located in the space between the green-tinted windows on each floor
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