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Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 1)
Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 2)
Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 3)
Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 4)
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Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 6)
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Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons: Bettina Johae (Thumbnail)
Bettina Johae
New York

Bettina Johae (Dipl.-Ing. Architecture / MA Studio Art) studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin and the IIT in Chicago, and art at New York University and the International Center of Photography.
She is the co-founder and director of aplusnyc – Architecture and Art Tours in New York City and has been a member of the Guiding Architects Network since 2010.
Her internationally exhibited work examines how cities are perceived and transformed, with a primary focus on New York. Alongside her urban research, she is engaged in sustainable design and passive house renovations.
Bettina Johae has lived in New York since 2001.

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Tour in New York:
Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons

Midtown Manhattan presents a dense layering of New York’s architectural history, from important early 20th-century landmarks to a new generation of skyscrapers.

The tour examines the evolution of air right transfers - invented in the early 20th Century to build above the rail yards at Grand Central - and shows how this legal concept now supports the rise of close-by supertall commercial towers and the ultra-slender residential buildings defining 57th Street.

Key moments in New York’s zoning history are explored through visits to two influential prototypes of modern corporate architecture: Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building and SOM’s Lever House.
Sustainable design forms another core theme, highlighted by New York’s first all-electric supertall by Foster + Partners, engineered for net-zero emissions.

A full-day architectural itinerary may continue west to BIG’s VIA 57 West and Lincoln Center or east to Roosevelt Island to explore Cornell Tech’s energy-efficient campus and Louis Kahn’s Four Freedoms Park.

– Duration: Mini tour (2.5-3 hours), half day (3.5-4 hrs) or full day (8 hrs)
– Transport: Walking tour
– Services: Experienced local architect as guide
– Languages: English, German, Portuguese and Spanish
– Group size: up to 5 people for a mini tour, up to 20 people for the half day and full day tours

Selection of included projects:

- New York Times Building - Renzo Piano, 2007
- New York Public Library (Schwarzman Building) at Bryant Park - Carrère and Hastings, 1911
- Chrysler Building - William van Alen, 1930
- Grand Central Terminal - Reed & Stem and Warren & Wetmore, 1913
- One Vanderbilt Avenue – KPF, 2021
- JP Morgan Chase HQ / 270 Park - Foster + Partner, 2025
- Lever House – Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1952
- Seagram Building – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, 1958
- Residential Supertalls by Rafael Viñoly Architects, SHoP Architects, Smith+Gill, Christian de de Portzamparc, Robert A.M. Stern
- VIA 57 West – BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), 2016

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Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 7)

aplusnyc

Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 8)

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Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 9)

aplusnyc

Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 10)

aplusnyc

Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 11)

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Guiding Architects, tour: Midtown - Next Generation Skyscrapers and Landmarked Icons (Fig. 12)

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