Hood was a practical man and he designed from a practical approach, as he describes in his own words: "The first consideration was utility. The problems of elevators, light and air and the other engineering questions which enter into the construction of any great project were the first to be solved. After that came the work of making the exteriors as good as possible. A building today is built from the inside, not the outside. Genuine, vigorous beauty, the sort of beauty which is found in our skyscrapers, must go hand in hand with utility."

And the Center would indeed have a vigorous beauty. Hood and Rockefeller contracted some of the leading Art Deco artists and sculptors to lend their monolithic visions to the project. In 1934 Paul Manship unveiled "Prometheus" and 1937 saw Lee Lawrie & Rene Chambellan's "Atlas" revealed.

The main entrance to 30 Rock is watched over by Lee Lawrie's "Wisdom, Light and Sound," and, throughout the Center, you can find Hildreth Meiere's "Spirits of Song, Drama and Dance," Isamu Noguchi's "News," Attilia Piccirilli's "Youth Leading Industry," Giacomo Manzu's "The Italian Immigrant and Italia," Carl Paul Jennewein's "British Commonwealth" and Alfred Janniot's "The Friendship of France and the United States."