Today Michael Wyetzner of Michielli + Wyetzner Architects joins AD in New York for an in-depth walking tour of the United Nations. Founded in 1945, the UN now comprises 193 member states, all of whom assemble at their modernist headquarters on the bank of the East River in NYC. The birthplace of international diplomacy, the United Nations became the first major building in New York to represent International Style architecture.
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00:00This is the only place in the world where nearly 200 nations meet under just one roof,
00:05and it essentially represents the birthplace of international diplomacy as we know it.
00:11I'm Michael Whitester. I've been an architect in New York City for over 35 years,
00:15and today we're going to be doing a walking tour of the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
00:20During the height of World War II, the nations of the world, other than the Axis powers, Germany,
00:32Italy, and Japan, sought to establish an organization for diplomacy and peaceful
00:38collaboration. In a private meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941,
00:43U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought up the idea of using the name the United Nations.
00:49After the war in 1947, an international team of architects were brought together to design the
00:55headquarters of the United Nations in New York City. The end result stands as an international
01:00symbol for post-war optimism, and the first major building in New York built in the international
01:05style. The campus was completed in 1952, and it was composed of three buildings, one of which is
01:11the conference building, which can only really be seen from the East River, but it's the other two
01:15buildings that the U.N. is really defined by, and they stand in seeming contrast to one another,
01:20the tall glass secretariat building and the low-slung general assembly building. So how did
01:26the U.N. end up here in Turtle Bay on the East River? So there were a number of other sites
01:32considered. One was on the Palisades in New Jersey, another was outside of San Francisco,
01:36and yet another was in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens. But serendipitously, architect Wallace K.
01:42Harrison was already working on this site for another development. So Harrison was personally
01:47connected to the Rockefellers, and in fact, as a young man, led the design team for Rockefeller
01:52Center, and he recommended that the Rockefellers donate eight and a half million dollars to the
01:57United Nations to buy this site in Turtle Bay, and that's exactly what they did. And that led to
02:02Harrison being selected to lead the international team of architects. That team consisted of 10
02:07architects from around the world, including Oscar Niemeyer from Brazil and the renowned Swiss-born
02:13French architect Le Corbusier. And in fact, the overall design and arrangement of these buildings
02:19was configured by Le Corbusier, known as Scheme 23A.
02:31Over my shoulder, you can see the secretariat building. This 39-story tower was the first major
02:36international style building in New York City. Because of its height, it can be seen from a great
02:41distance, which makes it the architectural emblem of the United Nations. So what is the international
02:46style? It originated in Europe in the 1910s and 1920s, as architects explored new materials and
02:52technologies, which allowed for more light and air. They were also concerned with an honest
02:57expression of structure and designs that were stripped of ornament. So it started as a notion
03:02by Adolf Loos, where he questioned the need for ornament at all. And that is picked up by
03:06architects like Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Corbusier, and turned into a whole new style of
03:12architecture. But although the international style began in Europe, it actually got its name right
03:17here in New York City in 1932, with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, which was curated
03:22by Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock. The international style is also known as modernism,
03:28and the two terms, for all practical purposes, are interchangeable when describing architecture.
03:33The reason why it's so appropriate for this international organization is that any other
03:37style of architecture would have had its roots in a national culture. It rejected historical
03:42references like Greek columns and Roman arches, and it started with a clean slate, which is in a
03:49sense what the UN was trying to do. And so because it looked out of place everywhere, it could sort
03:55of look at home anywhere. So this is what I love about this building. A big part of modern
04:01architecture was liberating the plane from its embedment in buildings. Spaces were typically
04:07made up of four walls, and planes didn't stand free on their own. That is until Frank Lloyd Wright
04:12broke open the box with this free plan and open space. With these two solid stone bookends,
04:21with glass stretching between them, the building almost reads as if it's two-dimensional, which it
04:26wouldn't if it were all glass. So the fact that this tower is so narrow, almost like a thin wafer,
04:31allows all the spaces within to be filled with sunlight. You're never far from a window, which
04:36makes it a very pleasant place to be, especially compared to other office buildings at the time.
04:40This is really the first glass curtain wall in New York, and what that means is that the glass hangs
04:45off the structure like a curtain. Lever House would be the first all-glass curtain wall just a
04:51couple years later. The downside of all this glass is that it allows solar heat gain inside the
04:56building, which requires cooling to offset it. Corbusier originally wanted to add external shading
05:01devices sticking out to block the sun, but they ended up going with this thermopane glass. The
05:07other unique thing about this building is that they tried to incorporate the most modern HVAC
05:11systems of the day, and that is expressed with these horizontal vented bands at the mechanical
05:16levels about every 10th floor.
05:24Behind me, you can see the General Assembly building. So if the Secretariat is the recognizable
05:29face of the UN, by contrast, unless you've been here, many people don't even know what the General
05:33Assembly building looks like. And yet, this building is the literal home of global diplomacy.
05:39Once a year, delegates of the 193 member states gather here under one roof to discuss global
05:47issues. In a sense, this makes New York the capital of the world. So as the famous writer E.B. White
05:53said, and I'm paraphrasing here, New York is not a state capital, it's not a national capital, but
05:58because it's the home of the UN, it becomes the capital of the world. When you think about it,
06:02this is an incredible achievement. This modern idea that almost 200 nations get together and meet
06:08under one roof to discuss global issues. And because the United Nations was only founded in
06:131945, this has only been happening for less than 80 years. And the scale of the UN has continued to
06:18grow in that time, where it started out with 51 member states, now it's grown to almost quadruple
06:24that size. So because it serves a very different purpose, the General Assembly building is very
06:30different from the Secretariat, which is essentially an office building. So Corbusier was also a painter,
06:36and the way he arranged these buildings is almost like a still life. The way the low-slung
06:39General Assembly building is juxtaposed against the slab of the Secretariat building. As far as
06:45the General Assembly is concerned, there are a few hints that Wallace Harrison was more involved in
06:50the design of this building. This saddle-shaped building, with its concave curves, is very
06:55reminiscent of another building that Harrison designed, the Hall Auditorium at Oberlin College.
07:00These curves actually create a sort of asymmetrical hourglass plan for the building.
07:04You can also see on the roof this large dome, which indicates where the General Assembly Hall is.
07:09That dome was not originally part of the design, but was actually insisted upon by a U.S. senator
07:15to convince Congress to appropriate more funds for construction. He was concerned that Congress
07:20wouldn't appropriate the funds unless a dome was incorporated into the design. Every big
07:24governmental building in the U.S. had one, like the U.S. Capitol and many state capitals, and he
07:29was afraid that they couldn't conceive of a governmental building without a dome. So the
07:33costs associated with building this campus also led to some other changes to the original design.
07:38The Secretariat was originally designed to be 45 stories tall, but was cut down to 39, and the
07:43entire General Assembly building was intended to be made from the same marble as the sidewalls of
07:48the Secretariat. But because of the cost, they used Portland stone from England instead, and only used
07:53marble for certain details. The inside of the General Assembly Hall was partially inspired by
07:58Alvar Aalto's Finnish pavilion from the 1939 World's Fair, with these very tall canted walls of
08:04wood slats. And it's probably the most recognizable part of the building, since it is so often shown
08:08on television when the General Assembly is in session. Another famous interior portion of the
08:13building is the South Lobby, where delegates enter the building, which is all glass. And the North
08:17Lobby is for press and other visitors, with its alternating vertical bands of glass and marble.
08:23The inside of the North Lobby is an incredible space, and it's one place where you can clearly
08:27see Oscar Niemeyer's influence on the project. Niemeyer was known for graceful curves, and also
08:32these very particular ramps, which were a signature of Corbusier, which influenced Niemeyer. And
08:38actually, the two had worked together previously on the Ministry of Education and Health building
08:42in Brazil. Even though these buildings are relatively young, there's an incredible amount
08:53of history attached to them. If you'd like to hear more international architectural stories,
08:57let us know in the comments below.