Unlike the lush, elaborate, French-inspired, high Deco romanticism of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State's massing and design is a more simplified, commercial evocation of the Machine Age, a favorite theme of the time.
Another job will be to axe dozens of the commission's more peripheral projects and agencies legacies, mainly, of the empire-building days of Mr Delors, when the commission took on new responsibilities for which it did not have the necessary complement of trained permanent staff.