The Pavilion and Colonnade Apartments are three highrise

apartment building An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement ( Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) ...

s in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...

. The Pavilion Apartments are located at 108-136 Martin Luther King Junior Blvd. and the Colonnade Apartments at 25-51 Clifton Avenue in the overlapping neighborhoods known as Seventh Avenue and

Lower Broadway Broadway is a major thoroughfare in the downtown area in Nashville, Tennessee. It includes Lower Broadway, a tourist and entertainment district renowned for honky tonks and live country music. The Broadway Historic District or Honky Tonk Highway ...

. The 22-story towers were designed in the

International Style The International Style is a major architectural style and movement that began in western Europe in the 1920s and dominated modern architecture until the 1970s. It is defined by strict adherence to Functionalism (architecture), functional and Fo ...

by architect

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect, academic, and interior designer. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. He is regarded as one of the pionee ...

and opened in 1960, originally known as Colonnade Park. The towers are built in the modernist style of " towers in the park," which advocated dense high-rise housing complexes set within parks and open spaces (which has since fallen out of fashion in favor of mixed-use and low-rise development). Soon after completing Manhattan's

Seagram Building The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd Street (Manhattan), 52nd and 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe along with P ...

, Mies designed the three towers near Branch Brook Park, north of

Downtown Newark Downtown Newark is the central business district of Newark, New Jersey, Newark in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Downtown is the site of the original Puritan settlement of Newark located at a bend in th ...

and adjacent University Heights and Interstate 280. Privately owned, the buildings were intended to bring middle-income families to the area of the Christopher Columbus Homes — a cluster of low-income apartment buildings, or public housing projects, which were eventually demolished. The Pavilion Apartments were sold in April 2018.

Historical significance

The Pavilion and Colonnade Apartments possess exceptional importance in the 20th century social history of Newark, urban planning and development, and Modernist architecture. The district has the distinction of being New Jersey's first urban renewal project and one of the first in the nation. Through an effort of over 10 years, involving planning, court cases, State and Federal legislation, and a number of developers, the Colonnade Park came to fruition in 1960. The immediate surrounding area has New Jersey's highest concentration of historic landmarks, including Plume House (c.1725), State Street Public School (c.1845), House of Prayer (c.1850), Branch Brook Park (c.1895), Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart (c.1898-1954), Newark Broad Street Station (c.1903), and St. Lucy's Church (c.1926), all of which are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. One of the 20th century's most influential architects,

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect, academic, and interior designer. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. He is regarded as one of the pionee ...

, collaborated with the legendary developer Herbert Greenwald to these towers in Newark among other projects, such as the 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago, the Seagram Building in New York City, and Lafayette Park, Detroit. Upon Greenwald's death in a 1959 air crash, Colonnade Park became their last collaboration and Mies’ only residential project in the eastern United States. File:Pavilion Apartments in 1962.jpg, The Pavilion in 1962 File:Colonnade Apartments in 1962.jpg, The Colonnade in 1962 File:Newark Colonnade Floorplan.jpg, Newark Colonnade - plan of typical floor

Buildings description

The Colonnade Park consists of three International Style residential towers designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1960. They are located immediately adjacent to the northern edge of Newark's Central Business District, north of Interstate 280, east of Clifton Avenue, south of Seventh Avenue, and west of the intersection of Broad Street and Broadway. Conceived as “a city within a city,” the twin buildings known as the Pavilion Apartments are next to the city's Broad Street thoroughfare, and the large “double-length” building known as the Colonnade Apartments faces the majestic Branch Brook Park. The three 22-story aluminum-clad glass high-rises offer 1,240 apartments on a 23.5-acre site. The immediate surrounding area has New Jersey's highest concentration of historic landmarks. It is the only residential work ever constructed in the eastern states that was personally designed by Mies van der Rohe. As such, Mies' Newark project is in many ways aesthetically similar to the Seagram Building, with similar window proportions, exposed beams, columned ground floor, and elevator lobby. Mies’ Colonnade Apartments, with its reflective glass skin, majestically stands above the treetops of

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...

's Branch Brook Park in the west. Downhill toward the east, 1,500 feet away, the two Pavilion Apartments are perpendicularly oriented, but face each other with 500 feet apart. The narrower sides of the two rectangular structures are positioned next to Broad Street, Newark's historic artery since 1666. Looking back toward the west, the massive Colonnade Apartments commands a dramatic scene on the top of the elevation, with two Pavilion Apartments symmetrically spaced on its two sides. Now, without the eight Columbus Homes high rises in-between, Mies’ vision has become ever more pronounced in these three 22-story rental buildings. Upper-level floors command views of Downtown Newark and the Manhattan skyline. A rectilinear prism, the Colonnade Apartments measures 446 feet by 66 feet and contains 560 apartments. (It is Mies’ most expansive structure.) Each bay of the building, that is the distance between two structural columns, measures 22 feet and contains four windows. Each of the two Pavilion Apartments towers is 214 feet by 66 feet with 340 apartments each (680 total). Each tower is a compact mass, symmetrical unto itself, framed by four corners that have a particular aesthetic earlier revealed at Mies' work for the

Illinois Institute of Technology The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...

. The corners consist of two wide flanges at the center-lines and an eight-inch angle welded between - a feature shared with most of Mies' other towers. These towers were built with reinforced concrete columns to reduce costs, while a skin of glass and prefabricated aluminum moderated the buildings' internal temperature.

Gallery

File:Panorama of Pavilion and Colonnade Apartments in Newark, NJ.jpg, From left to right: Garden Spires Apartments (not related to Mies), Colonnade Apartments, Branch Brook Park, Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Pavilion Apartments, Newark Broad Street Station, House of Prayer Episcopal Church and Rectory. Photo taken from

One Washington Park One Washington Park is a high rise office building located on Harriet Tubman Square at 1 Washington Street in Newark, New Jersey. Among the tallest buildings in the city, it is best known as the home of Rutgers Business School, Amazon's Aud ...

office tower.

Pavilion

File:PavilionApts(South).jpg, The Pavilion at Sunset File:PavilionAptsNewark.JPG, Pavilion from Downtown File:PavilionApts(Newark) 02.jpg, The Pavilion File:PavilionApts(Newark) 01.JPG, The Pavilion File:PavilionApts(North).jpg, The Pavilion at Sunset

Colonnade

File:Colonnade(highrise)Newark4.jpg, Colonnade from Branch Brook Park File:Colonnade(highrise)Newark3.JPG, Colonnade Entrance File:Colonnade(highrise)Newark2.jpg, Colonnade Entrance File:ColonnadeApts(Newark).JPG, Colonnade from Downtown Newark File:Colonnade(highrise)Newark1.jpg, Colonnade

References

External links

Pavilion and Colonnade Park Apartments Landmarks Nomination for US National Register of Historic Places
(unofficial) {{DEFAULTSORT:Pavilion and Colonnade Apartments Ludwig Mies van der Rohe buildings National Register of Historic Places in Newark, New Jersey Residential skyscrapers in Newark, New Jersey International style architecture in New Jersey 1960 establishments in New Jersey Residential buildings completed in 1960 Apartment buildings in Newark, New Jersey