Fred F. French Building

Abstract

NOW THAT the modernists held sway over New York’s skyline, architects sought to overthrow the axioms of Beaux-Arts design. Jazz Age architects experimented with brilliant polychromy in reaction to what they saw as the sterile whiteness of classical revival. (Of course, Greek temples in their time were riotously colorful; it was only the leaching effects of time that made them seem so pale.)