LEGO Rockefeller Center, Instructions Manual, Page: 5 / 60

an offi cial “Sidewalk Superintendents’ Club” was established,
complete with membership cards providing access to a
viewing platform.
The principal builder and “managing agent” for
the massive project was John R. Todd and the principal
architect was Raymond M. Hood, who worked with and
directed a team from three diff erent architectural fi rms.
Hood was the greatest skyscraper architect of the 1920s,
embodying and inspiring the evolution of skyscraper
design in America during the decade, and the Rockefeller
Center was his last major project. Though the actual
design was the work of a consortium of architects, he has
been described as the “key man” in its development, and
the massing of the buildings, their monochromatic exteriors,
and their rooftop landscape gardens almost certainly
refl ect his infl uence.
Construction of the RCA Building and Lower Plaza in progress in September 1932.
The Center Theatre, on the left, and the RKO Building, rear right, were already
complete. Next to the RKO Building, the Radio City Music Hall was nearing completion.
(Image: Wired New York)
5
21007_BI.indd 5 21007_BI.indd 5 27/08/2010 2:17 PM 27/08/2010 2:17 PM