Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower

Abstract

WITHOUT A clear precedent for what the world’s tallest building should look like, Pierre L. LeBrun of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons reached back to one of the best-known buildings in history—the campanile of St. Mark’s in Venice—for his model. The scale problems of transposing an historical style to a skyscraper are immediately apparent: stretching 700 feet, one inch, from the sidewalk, the Met Life Tower does not seem particularly tall or distinctive.