Shown is a partial view of the Seagram Building, a monumental and still highly revered edifice located at 375 Park Avenue at 53rd Street, Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, it was built in just two years between 1956 and 1958, just as New York City asserted itself as the centre of global artistic production. It is considered by many who know of it or who have experienced it to be the purest expression of its type. David Grandorge is a photographer and senior lecturer in architecture at London Met. His fee for this column has been donated to support the publication of new and diverse voices in the AJ