Empire State Plaza Albany
— the future the 1960s actually built.
Not only on a wall.
“A modernist plaza set on a raised marble deck above downtown Albany. Nelson Rockefeller pushed it through in the 1960s, and the complex finished in 1976: four agency towers, the 589-foot Corning Tower, a long reflecting pool, and the upside-down dome of The Egg sitting on the south end like a stone teardrop. The art collection runs to ninety-two works of Abstract Expressionism on permanent display through the concourse.
Empire State Plaza Albany, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Empire State Plaza occupies a 98-acre site in downtown Albany, New York, two blocks south of the State Capitol. Construction began in 1965 under Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and concluded in 1976 at a final cost of around two billion dollars. The complex houses ten state agency buildings, a convention center, the New York State Museum, and the Cultural Education Center, all connected by an underground concourse that runs roughly a quarter mile from north to south.
The plaza is the work of Wallace Harrison of Harrison & Abramovitz, who had also led the design committee for the United Nations and Rockefeller Center. The cladding is Vermont marble over reinforced concrete, with bronze and aluminum trim. The Corning Tower rises 589 feet across forty-two floors and remains the tallest building in New York State outside Manhattan. The Egg, the performing arts center at the south end, rests on a single stem buried six stories into the bedrock below the plaza deck.
The plaza is open to the public throughout the year, with no fee for the concourse, the reflecting pool walkway, or the observation deck on the 42nd floor of the Corning Tower. The New York State Museum at the south end is free as well. The Empire State Plaza Art Collection, ninety-two Abstract Expressionist works by Rothko, Frankenthaler, Pollock, and others, is hung along the concourse and visible during normal business hours on weekdays.