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.
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