Word: stairstep
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Accent of Emptiness. Mies van der Rohe believes that "structure is spiritual"; his aim is to express the skyscraper's essential steel cage as dramatically as possible and with a maximum of economy. In the Seagram building, he did this with deceptive simplicity. To avoid the stairstep building plan that Manhattan architects have overused to meet zoning requirements (the tower must be only 25% of the site area), Mies sacrificed valuable Park Avenue frontage, threw open a wide plaza. This gave him an opportunity to create an accent of emptiness, at the same time gave his building a dramatic...
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