LVMH Tower

19 East 57th Street | also 17 East 57th Street, 21 East 57th Street | Midtown | built 1998

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1996

    Ground is broken, then work stalls for four years over financing and parts made abroad

    Construction of the LVMH Tower began in 1996, but progress was largely halted for about four years. Disagreements over financing with the landlord, Robert Siegel, were one cause, and there were logistical problems with making the building's components in several countries. The tower finally opened in December 1999.

    “Ground was broken for the building in 1996, but work was then largely halted for four years by disagreements over financing…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1999

    November 30

    Bernard Arnault says he picked Portzamparc himself and wants the tower to symbolize LVMH

    Days before the tower's opening, LVMH president Bernard Arnault said in a Paris interview that he had chosen the architect himself, after meeting Christian de Portzamparc, the 1994 Pritzker Prize winner, at a lunch tied to a visit by President Clinton. Arnault, an engineer by training who once ran his family's construction firm, said the New York tower had to express the group's mix of modernity and creativity.

    Source: Internet Archive

  3. 1999

    December

    A Peter Marino-designed Dior boutique debuts at the base as the tower opens

    The ground-floor Christian Dior boutique, designed by the architect Peter Marino, was scheduled to make its debut in the same week as the tower's official opening in December 1999. LVMH, the parent company of Dior, Givenchy and others, intended the building to serve as its American corporate headquarters. A dinner for 250 guests, hosted by John Galliano, was planned in the glass penthouse to mark the occasion.

    Source: Internet Archive

  4. 1999

    December 8

    Christian de Portzamparc's LVMH Tower opens on East 57th Street

    Ground was broken in 1996, but construction stalled for four years amid financing disputes between LVMH and landlord Robert Siegel. The finished 24-story tower folds two glass volumes together, green fritted glass facing west and milky white glass facing east, with a blue glass cube marking the fold at the tenth floor. It opened on December 8, 1999, as the headquarters of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1999

    Critics praise the tower's design and its rooftop 'Magic Room'

    Architecture critics praised the tower around its completion: Ada Louise Huxtable called it 'the best new building in New York,' and Herbert Muschamp called it the most important building New York had completed in years. Every business in the LVMH group has a floor of its own, and the top of the tower holds a glass-enclosed 'Magic Room,' a reception space three floors high. A Christian Dior store designed by Peter Marino occupies the ground level.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 2001

    Plans to enlarge the tower are halted as the economy slows

    A planned expansion of the LVMH Tower was stopped in 2001, a casualty of the economic downturn. A February 2002 Times essay described Portzamparc as a conservative architect whose strength is continuity, and said the addition would have made that even clearer. Without the addition, the tower serves as a contrast to the black granite IBM Building across 57th Street.

    Source: Internet Archive

Further reading

Nearby

All 178 buildings with stories in Midtown