Flight – 1963 – Met Life Building (former Pan Am Building), NYC

Commissioned by Juan Terry Trippe, founder of Pan Am Airways and by architect Walter Gropius for the Pan Am Building.

The history of the Pan Am Building begins in 1954 as part of the plan to reconstruct Grand Central Terminal. Erwin S. Wolfson developed the project in the early 1960's with the assistance of architects Emery Roth, Pietro Belluschi, Ivan Chermayeff and Edward Larrabee Barnes.

The forms of this work are derived from the performances and shapes of modern aircraft, except for a sphere of the world in the center. From this sphere a seven-pointed star radiates as if toward the seven seas; its long conical arms originating in Great Circles of the globe, like the routes followed in inter-continental travel.