Retreat of the Cleft Heads

The redheaded Uris brothers. Percy and Harold, have made a fortune out of conforming to the latest taste in office buildings. Their recent constructions in Manhattan have been compared both to wedding cakes and to Assyrian ziggurats, and have more layers than the former, more bulk than the latter and about as much esthetic merit as both combined. Says Percy Uris: "We're not building in a vacuum. We're building in a market."

Hopeful of finding a place for art even in the market, the Uris brothers last month installed a bleak bronze by Sculptor Henry Moore in the stark, cavernous lobby of a building they had erected on the site of the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The bronze was Moore's controversial King and Queen (TIME. March i), a cleft-headed, paper-thin pair of half-humans on a bench. After the superintendent reported that 75% of the tenants were saying unkind things about it, the Uris brothers resignedly had the bronze hauled back to the dealer. "I still think it's lovely," Percy Uris explained last week, "but after all, the tenants are our customers."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.