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New York Architecture
Images- Midtown Ford Foundation Building |
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architect |
Roche Dinkeloo |
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location |
321 East 42nd Street |
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date |
1967 |
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style |
International Style II |
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construction |
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type |
Office Building |
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images |
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notes |
New York's
best building of the 1960s, the Ford Foundation Building was built for the
country's largest philanthropic organization. The form of the building
represents a departure from the abstract purity of the International
Style. Supported by an exposed steel structure, the building takes the
form of a glass box enclosing an interior atrium which rises the full
height of the building to a skylight. Offices are located around this
central court with a view into the atrium garden which also serves as a
public space. The humane environment created by this layout reflects the
lofty values of the foundation which supports the arts and humanitarian
causes. The layout of buildings around atrium spaces or winter gardens
would later become popularized in the shopping mall and numerous
skyscrapers of the 1980s. Made of Core-ten steel, the structure's surface
resembles wood due to a patina which results from oxidation and gives the
steel a rich tone. In the Ford Foundation Building, new materials are
incorporated with a unique formal expression making this building a good
example of late modern architecture.
In the density of Manhattan's midtown the Ford Foundation building pioneered the spacious, green, full-height atrium. The lush planting occupies a third of an acre within the building, complete with lily pond, on a sloping terrace that accommodates the one-story difference in height between the entrances on 42nd and 43rd Streets. A glazed roof 130 feet above the planting creates a semi-tropical garden, which can be seen both from the twelve floors of offices and - via a glass wall extending most of the way up the building - from the street outside (on the 42nd Street side). The building was recognized by the Architectural Record in 1968 as 'a new kind of urban space'. This is not 'organic architecture'. The steel girders and granite facing, the highly polished brick floors, and the Modernist form of the building are harshly inorganic. But the contrast serves to make the softening and humanizing effect of the greenery that much stronger.
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| How
to visit
The building has entrances on both 42nd and 43rd Streets, just west of First Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Architecturally it's five minutes walk away from the United Nations building, the Chrysler building and the beautifully restored Grand Central Station. The Ford Foundation's garden atrium is open to the public during normal office hours. For information telephone +1 212 573 5000. |
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