Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

The 1.6-million-square-foot building —triple the size of the Coliseum, New York’s former exposition facility—was designed to house the world’s largest exhibition hall. The building contains offices, shops, dining, service areas, and more than a hundred flexible meeting rooms, with an advanced communications system allowing the simultaneous translation of multiple languages. All these components are organized around a glazed urban room of great size yet delicate space-framed construction.

With its 1,000-foot long public concourse, 15-story Crystal Palace, Galleria, and 1.1-acre outdoor plaza, the Javits Center transformed the traditional notion of a convention center from a large windowless box cut off from everything around into a welcoming public building integrally related to the surrounding city.

The project’s full significance lies as much in its monumental public spaces as in the exhibition halls they surround. Funded by the taxpayers and executed with their interests firmly in mind, the Javits Center remains the largest and most important public building undertaken in New York City in more than half a century.