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East 42nd Street, Midtown Manhattan The landscaped atrium of the Ford Foundation Building, built in 1963-67 and designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates, is one of the most successful and admired interior spaces in a modern building created in New York City after World War II. The Ford Foundation, the nation's largest private foundation, commissioned an independent headquarters building through the inspiration of its then president, Henry Heald, who in his former position at the Illinois Institute of Technology had overseen the construction of the Mies van der Rohedesigned campus, a major monument of the modern movement. The Foundation and its architects offered New York an alternative model for modem office buildings as they created an elegant, transparent glass cube, just twelve stories tall, framed in exposed Cor-Ten weathering steel (also known as controlled-rusting steel) and mahoganycolored South Dakota granite that clads poured concrete piers. On the interior they created a lush landscaped full-height atrium that occupies most of the building, a botanical garden in the heart of Midtown. The interior atrium and its garden relate to the small parks of Tudor City directly to the east. Because the East 43rd Street entrance is placed at the northwest comer of the atrium, and the offices within line the north and west interior walls, visitors entering are immediately aware of the transparent, twelve-story high atrium and its landscaping, as light pours in through the eastern and southern glass walls. Occupying a third of an acre within the twelve-story atrium, the terraced garden rises from East 42nd Street to East 43rd Street. Landscaped by Dan Kiley, who had collaborated with the architects in the office of Eero Saarinen, it is planted with trees, shrubs, vines, and ground-cover plants, and contains a pool of water. Most of the offices rise on the north and west, each office and each employee visible on the other side of the interior glass wall. The intention was to create a working community in which every member was physically aware of every other member. Among the many critics who have extolled its design, Ada Louise Huxtable called the Ford Foundation Building a "civic gesture of beauty and excellence." - From the 1997 NYCLPC designation report.

By: Emilio Guerra Copyright © All Rights Reserved

Taken: October 10, 2009
Uploaded: November 11, 2009

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