“The Seagram Company assumes the aesthetic raiment of government, bestowing on the public space of the street an imposing demonstration of social hierarchy and the ethical relationships of New York’s social classes. The rich give, the poorer receive. The rich are generous—they bestow on the teeming masses beauty, and space for gathering and enjoyment, and ask, in return, what the givers of all gifts ask, appreciation and a kind of fealty that amounts to a confirmation of the social arrangement the gift expresses. “I would rather be respected than loved,” the old saying goes. That is the Seagram Building, in short. Respect is the essence of an ethics based on power and its separateness from more common, and ambiguous, everyday emotions. This is what the aesthetics of its architecture has achieved, in the name of a company that makes and sells everyday liquors and wines and stands for no lofty ideals of public life.”
L.Woods
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