• The Century Apartments

    Credit: Emilio Guerra

    The Century Apartments • Location: New York • Architects: Irwin S. Chanin and Jacques Delamarre • Built: 1931 • Units: 416 • Notable: The 30-story Art Deco building stands out from many of its neighbors, which are designed in the Beaux-Arts style. The building, once home to legendary entertainers including Robert Goulet, Ray Bolger, Fay Wray, Ethel Merman, and Nanette Fabr, landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The Century Apartments represents a high point in modern residential luxury design. It was one of the first Art Deco residential buildings in New York and established itself as a trendsetter in luxury design. The project became a prototype for future development all along Central Park West and elsewhere. The brickwork and diversity of apartment types—duplexes and numerous different layouts with sunken living rooms—suggest the notion of the building as a microcosm of the urban experience itself at a time when new ideas of urbanism were just being formed. In addition to its 1930s glamour, it is truly an urban building that both works with and reinforces the grid system of NYC.

—Carmi Bee, president, RKT&B architectural and urban design firm, New York