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New York’s Rockefeller Center is one of most symbolically rich places in the world, although few of its millions of visitors stop to reflect on what its images of power really mean. In the form of an Atlantean mythological allegory, Rockefeller Center was conceived as symbolic propaganda for capitalist, liberal values implicit in both the ‘American Dream’ and the ideology espoused by the Rockefeller family. It embodies the utopia of progress and science that promotes the freedom of the individual and the free movement of capital. Due to ideological clashes –or the vagaries of fate– the Catalan José María Sert was the artist to ultimately complete the most eloquent mural in the main building, a mural which had formerly been painted by Diego de Rivera, and entitled Man at the Crossroads. Sert was a muralist who had previously worked on the scenographic illustration of Manuel de Falla’s Atlántida, capturing some of the motifs that inspired that great cantata based on poetic texts by Jacint Verdaguer. That earlier work is reflected in the lobby of Rockefeller Center’s main building. While Diego de Rivera’s censored frescoes have been studied prolifically, little attention has been paid to Sert’s paradoxical reading of the same subjects. In this article, we analyse the history of the Atlantean Mediterranean literary myth in relation to Spain, the use John D. Rockefeller Jr. made of them in his emblematic urbanistic ensemble, and also the peculiar reading that the Catalan muralist made of these themes of Atlantis in relation to capitalism.

Se retoma en este escrito parte de la Introducción del libro de Irene Herner Diego Rivera. Paraíso perdido en Rockefeller Center, editado por Edicupes, en un convenio con la FCPyS de la UNAM. El volumen, realizado en colaboración con Gabriel Larrea y Rafael Angel Herrerías, incluye una selección y traducción de documentos que -localizados en la biblioteca del Museo de Arte Moderno de Nueva York, en la National Library de Nueva York, así como en la Biblioteca Nacional de Ciudad Universitaria- dan razón del evento protagonizado por Rivera entre marzo de 1933 y la primera mitad de 1934.

Join workers as they transport and dress a 75-foot Norway spruce from Pennsylvania for the annual tree lighting ceremony in Rockefeller Center.

Almanacis a collection of lyrical and narrative poems that celebrate, and mourn the passing of, the world of the small family farm. But while the poems are all involved in some way with the rural Midwest, particularly with the people and land of the northwestern Illinois dairy farm where Austin Smith was born and raised, they are anything but merely regional. As the poems reflect on farm life, they open out to speak about childhood and death, the loss of tradition, the destruction of the natural world, and the severing of connections between people and the land. This collection also reflects on a long poetic apprenticeship. Smith's father is a poet himself, andAlmanacis in part a meditation about the responsibility of the poet, especially the young poet, when it falls to him to speak for what is vanishing. To quote another Illinois poet, Thomas James, Smith has attempted in this book to write poems \"clear as the glass of wine / on [his] father's table every Christmas Eve.\" By turns exhilarating and disquieting, this is a remarkable debut from a distinctive new voice in American poetry.______ FromAlmanac:THE MUMMY IN THE FREEPORT ART MUSEUMAustin Smith Amongst the masterpieces of the small-townPicassos and Van Goghs and photographsof the rural poor and busts of dead Greeksor the molds of busts donated by the ArtInstitute of Chicago to this dyingtown's little museum, there was a mummy,a real mummy, laid out in a dim-litroom by himself. I used to goto the museum just to visit him, a pharaohwho, expecting an afterlifeof beautiful virgins and infinite foodand all the riches and jewelshe'd enjoyed in earthly life,must have wondered how the hellhe'd ended up in Freeport, Illinois.And I used to go alone into that roomand stand beside his sarcophagus and say,\"My friend, I've asked myself the same thing.\"

A publicity brochure declared it “a monument to the importance of radio in American life.” Rising seventy stories, with its gentle, stepped silhouette that disguised its massiveness, the skyscraper represented the best of American enterprise. Newspaper articles marveled at its size: its 10.38 million common bricks could build a community of nearly 700 houses; its seventy-five elevators, some traveling 1,400 feet a minute, could lift a person sixty-two stories to the elegant restaurant at the top in just thirty-seven and a half seconds; its air conditioning system, the largest “ever installed in a single office building,” kept the radio studios

The Japanese company that controls Rockefeller Center said it will hand over the bankrupt New York landmark to its largest creditor, setting the stage for a battle over one of the world's most famous pieces of real estate. Investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. on Tuesday said it wanted to invest $100 million to gain a stake in the complex. That came just hours after Chicago financier and Goldman, Sachs client Sam Zell, along with Walt Disney Co. and General Electric Co., agreed to invest $250 million.

Fitis a book about architecture and society that seeks to fundamentally change how architects and the public think about the task of design. Distinguished architect and urbanist Robert Geddes argues that buildings, landscapes, and cities should be designed to fit: fit the purpose, fit the place, fit future possibilities. Fit replaces old paradigms, such as form follows function, and less is more, by recognizing that the relationship between architecture and society is a true dialogue--dynamic, complex, and, if carried out with knowledge and skill, richly rewarding. With a tip of the hat to John Dewey,Fitexplores architecture as we experience it. Geddes starts with questions: Why do we design where we live and work? Why do we not just live in nature, or in chaos? Why does society care about architecture? Why does it really matter?Fitanswers these questions through a fresh examination of the basic purposes and elements of architecture--beginning in nature, combining function and expression, and leaving a legacy of form. Lively, charming, and gently persuasive, the book shows brilliant examples of fit: from Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia and Louis Kahn's Exeter Library to contemporary triumphs such as the Apple Store on New York's Fifth Avenue, Chicago's Millennium Park, and Seattle's Pike Place. Fitis a book for everyone, because we all live in constructions--buildings, landscapes, and, increasingly, cities. It provokes architects and planners, humanists and scientists, civic leaders and citizens to reconsider what is at stake in architecture--and why it delights us.

With particular reference to Manuel Castell's work on the 'information city' and Robert Fitch's essays on New York City, analyses the links between architectural style and the speculative economy. Architecture is the art most explicitly tied to the economy; the essay is part of an effort to illuminate the cultural character of the postmodern era through the character of its money. At a time of resurgent speculation, the value of land takes on greater economic importance. Discussing the Rockefeller Centre, attempts to arrive at a concept of mediation which can account for both its aesthetic and economic elements. Argues that, increasingly mortgaged to the future, architectural forms become dematerialised and impermanent. The speculative bubble finds expression in the architectural balloon. (Quotes from original text)

The Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center will shimmer with old-fashioned lights - and high-tech security - this year.