Snøhetta and Olayan Group Unveil a Revitalized 550 Madison
A new public Garden and a repositioned landmark debut in Midtown Manhattan
This week Olayan Group and Snøhetta held a ceremony with elected officials and city leaders to open a new, half-acre public garden at 550 Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th streets in Manhattan. The opening of the Garden, the first new green space in Midtown in decades, comes as Olayan completes the repositioning of the iconic 550 Madison Avenue office tower, New York City’s youngest landmark.
Snøhetta served as design architect for the repositioning of the tower as well as landscape architect for the new Garden.
Designed by Snøhetta, the Garden is located adjacent to 550 Madison in the location of a formerly enclosed mid-block passageway. The garden is substantially larger than other local public spaces, and welcomes area workers, residents and visitors with abundant seating, 48 trees, 200 shrubs, 6,300 bulb plants, 10,000 herbaceous understory plants, gender inclusive public restrooms and three kiosks with food and beverage offerings.
Craig Dykers, Snøhetta Founding Partner, said,“550 Madison builds on a series of projects in Midtown, including our work in Times Square and the observatory we designed at One Vanderbilt, that infuse the public realm with a sense of openness, wonder, and freedom. Like many New Yorkers, we yearn to connect with the outdoors, and this collaboration with Olayan offered our team an opportunity to reposition the heroic 550 Madison tower for a new age while reestablishing how the tower meets the city.”
"Snøhetta’s design for the new garden transforms the streets surrounding the iconic 550 Madison building into an accessible, lavishly vegetated, and highly visible public space. A new lobby window and redesigned storefronts honor Philip Johnson’s original design. We are honored to help return this important part of Midtown to its visitors while contributing to the celebrated vibrancy of New York City,” added Michelle Delk, Partner and Landscape Architect, Snøhetta.
“The half-acre Garden at 550 Madison is a welcoming new green space, offering a lush and elegant environment at the center of New York City,” explained Erik Horvat, Managing Director of Real Estate at Olayan America. “The garden’s cutting-edge design and meticulous maintenance positions it among the most beautiful public spaces in the city, while providing a dynamic amenity to tenants of 550 Madison.”
Built around a tranquil water feature and five sections centered on different focal structures, the 21,300-square foot garden is nearly twice the size of a previous public space in the same location. The garden’s bloom calendar is carefully timed for plant species to offer a wide range of colorful hues, from pink to purple, blue and yellow, at different blooming dates from February to October each year.
Distinct, “upland,” “lowland” and “sheltered” garden sections feature tree-filled backdrops and shrub skirts, drawing inspiration from Northeastern mountain vegetation ranging from fine-textured and airy to thick luxuriant foliage.
Mountain Rosebay, Smooth Hydrangea and Bottlebrush Buckeye fill the garden’s shrub skirt, with a tree assortment including Yellowwood, Sweetbay Magnolia and River Birch. Planters host a diversity of regional native species, from Soloman’s Seal, Goatsbeard and Black Cohosh to Coral Bell and Sword Fern.
Working alongside Snøhetta on the garden was a team of leading landscape and horticulture companies, including Phyto, The Dirt Company, SiteWorks, Arup and Adamson Associates Architects.
The 41-story, 850,000-square-foot 550 Madison began as a single-tenant headquarters for AT&T when it opened in 1984. The building’s new garden is part of a six-year effort by Olayan to reimaginethe high-rise – New York City’s youngest historic landmark – with wellness initiatives, sustainability programs and more than 30,000 square feet of luxury amenities.
In addition to the garden, building improvements include a Rockwell Group-designed club-level amenity space that promotes collaboration and creativity, including a concierge overseeing the Grand Hall, the Library, the Hearth Room, the Screening Room and the Pool Room. The club level also includes multiple dining offerings and kitchens for events.
The state-of-the-art fitness center at 550 Madison exceeds those of many luxurious private wellness and athletic clubs, with elegant space for health classes and workouts. And a new Gensler-designed lobby creates a cathedral-like experience, full of sunlight, bronze mesh materials, rust-colored leather and a greyscale terrazzo floor.
Sunshine from a soaring 65-foot arched-glass window spills light onto the building’s centerpiece artwork, “Solid Sky,” by the artist Alicja Kwade. The 1.2-billion-year-old, 24-ton spherical installation is made of Azul do Macaubas quartzite that was quarried in Brazil before being suspended by chains from 550 Madison’s vaulted, triple-height ceiling.
Learn more about 550 Madison and its renovation by visiting https://snohetta.com/projects/487-550-madison-garden-and-revitalization
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About Snøhetta
For more than 30 years, Snøhetta has designed some of the world’s most notable public and cultural projects. Snøhetta kick-started its career in 1989 with the competition-winning entry for the new library of Alexandria, Egypt. This was later followed by the commission for the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo, and the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion at the World Trade Center in New York City, among many others.
Since its inception, the practice has maintained its original transdisciplinary approach, and integrates architectural, landscape, interior, product, graphic, digital design and art across its projects. The collaborative nature between Snøhetta's different disciplines is an essential driving force of the practice.
The practice has a global presence, with offices spanning from Oslo, Paris, and Innsbruck, to New York, Hong Kong, Adelaide, and San Francisco.
Snøhetta is currently working on a wide range of international projects, including the 550 Madison Garden and Revitalization in New York, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, Airside - Kai Tak in Hong Kong, Esbjerg Maritime Center in Denmark, and the Shanghai Grand Opera House. Recently completed works include the Ordrupgaard Art Museum expansion in Denmark, the Cornell University Executive Education Center and Hotel in New York City, Le Monde Group Headquarters in Paris, Europe’s first underwater restaurant, Under, the redesign of the public space in Times Square, the expansion to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Lascaux IV: The International Centre for Cave Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Snøhetta’s working method practices a simultaneous exploration of traditional handicraft and cutting-edge digital technology. At the heart of all Snøhetta’s work lies a commitment to social and environmental sustainability, shaping the built environment and design in the service of humanism. Snøhetta believes well-conceived design can help things run more efficiently, improve people’s well-being and make life more enjoyable. Every project is designed with strong, meaningful concepts in mind – concepts that can translate the ethos of its users and their context.
Among its many recognitions, Snøhetta has been awarded the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award for the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the Aga Kahn Prize for Architecture for the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In 2016, Snøhetta was named Wall Street Journal Magazine's Architecture Innovator of the Year, and the practice has been named one of the world’s most innovative companies by Fast Company two years in a row. In 2020, Snøhetta was awarded the National Design Award for Architecture, bestowed by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
About The Olayan Group
The Olayan Group is a family-owned, multinational enterprise with an actively managed portfolio of international investments and diverse commercial and industrial operations. Originating in 1947, the Group today has offices in Vaduz, Athens, London, Luxembourg, Riyadh, Singapore, Vienna and New York, where Olayan has had a continuous presence for more than 50 years. Investing both directly and in partnership with leading developers, the Group has a diverse real estate portfolio that includes commercial, residential, and mixed-use properties. Learn more about The Olayan Group at: www.olayan.com.
