183 Madison Avenue's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital.

The base, comprising the lowest three stories of the facade, contains iron-and-bronze showroom frames, grilles, and doors designed by Edgar Brandt.

183 Madison Avenue was constructed as a showroom building for a development company called the Merchants & Manufacturers Exchange of New York.

[10] The design was distinguished from Warren and Wetmore's previous commissions, which had included the Grand Central Terminal and surrounding structures.

183 Madison Avenue's design also included more modern influences in the Art Deco style, which had just started to become popular when the building was completed.

[12][13] In 1925, International Studio magazine characterized the main entrance doors as being "carried to the nth power of perfection".

[5] The articulation of the facade consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital.

While the facade was made mostly of brick, it also used carved terracotta motifs designed by the New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Company.

On Madison Avenue and 34th Street, the base is clad almost entirely with large display windows set between granite piers, which are twice as wide as the bays above.

[12] The shaft, consisting of the fourth through fifteenth stories, includes continuous vertical piers made of brick.

These depictions include the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, as well as mythological figures such as Mercury, the Roman god of trade and travel.

Bronze-framed roundels, some of which contain motifs related to silk production and transport, separate the coved ceiling into several sections.

[18][19] During that time, the upper-class residences that had characterized the adjacent portion of Madison Avenue in the 19th century were being replaced with retail establishments.

Concurrently, Catts hired Warren & Wetmore to design a 17-story structure for tenants in the silk industry.

[29][30] The ceremony was overseen by architect Harvey Wiley Corbett, while commerce secretary Herbert Hoover, geologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, jeweler Louis Comfort Tiffany, and the French minister of commerce were among those who sent telegrams to celebrate the opening of the Cheney showroom in the building.

[33] Cheney Brothers, meanwhile, experienced financial difficulties in the late 1920s and early 1930s because of changes in the economy and silk industry, and in 1935, the business was reorganized.

[9] 183 Madison Avenue was later owned by British businessman Paul Kemsley, who had lost control of the building by 2010.

[41] The building was purchased in 2014 by a joint venture composed of Tishman Speyer and The Cogswell-Lee Development Group, at a cost of $185 million.