UN Headquarters buildings: A monument to modernism architecture

New York
Have you ever taken a moment to consider how the building around you influences your perception of what it houses? A dark artificially lit building with many walls and closed doors might make you feel uneasy, as if what goes on there is very secretive. A well lighted office with a great deal of steel and high ceilings with windows looking down onto the city far below may imply a sense of power within that office.
The architecture of a building, an office or a room can – if well designed - create your first impression of that organization and influence your opinion of it. So what does the architecture of UN Headquarters say?
When designing UN Headquarters in New York the international team of designers wanted the architecture of the building to reflect the organization's goals. That is to say, they wanted an open, transparent environment where nothing is hidden. They wanted the construction of the building to convey that feeling to all who enter even if it’s just a subconscious impression. So they turned to modernist architectural design.
“The reason why modern architecture is so perfect for the UN is that it’s about honesty, it’s about transparency and it’s about openness,” said Peter Wendeborn, the architect who gave a small group of staff a tour of the UN Headquarters on 4 October. He went on to say that the UN Headquarters buildings are “A monument to modernism architecture.”
Before modernist architecture – and before the UN Headquarters buildings – buildings were built in a more enclosed fashion. Imagine a building being designed as a block, and then all the offices or apartments were carved out of that block. There are walls everywhere and hallways like tunnels from one room to the next. You can only see what is in the room with you, and all the duct work and support structures are hidden in the walls and ceiling. At the time Headquarters was being conceived this is how buildings were designed.
However, when designing UN Headquarters, a completely new direction was taken. The design team didn’t want people to be separated from each other or the work of the organization to be hidden behind walls. They wanted to create a feeling of transparency and openness. They wanted people to be together and see what others were doing. So instead of building Headquarters as a block and carving out the space within, they decided instead to use columns to completely open up the space.
When one walks into the visitors entrance at Headquarters we see an open space and we are able to look up to the higher floors. We can see where the structure of the balconies meets the structure of the floor. We are able to see the pillars supporting the structure and the exposed ductwork in the ceilings. There is literally nothing hidden.
For that matter consider the shape of the pillars in the lobby. If you look at them you will notice that they take on the shape of a steel I-beam which is what they are. The I-beams were welded into place and then encased in concrete. However, the concrete was poured to match the shape of the I-beam in order to remain architecturally honest.
Honesty and openness are the key themes to the design of the UN buildings. It’s an attempt to strip away the enclosed nature of government or office buildings and show the actual workings behind it. Consider the walls of glass allowing people to look into the General Assembly Building or our workspace in the Secretariat. When you walk through the UN Buildings you always have a sense of where staff are, and where the work spaces are. The buildings honestly lay out where everyone is and where they begin and end.
Consider the layout of the original three buildings in New York. Of the eleven architects who worked on the Headquarters design, two emerged as key players. They were Oscar Niemeyer from Brazil, and Le Corbusier from France. They both had different ideas on how to connect the General Assembly Hall, Conference Centre and Secretariat building. Le Corbusier had the idea of building a block that the individual buildings would emerge from. However, Oscar Niemeyer had an idea that the compound would be laid out on a plain or plateau and each of the individual buildings would be separate.
Interestingly enough both of these contradictory ideas were combined into the layout we have today. Each building is distinct and separate, yet they all clearly connect. However, when they do connect you can see it, as if these completely different buildings were simply pushed together. You can see when you walk from the Conference Centre into the Secretariat how the walls change suddenly and dramatically.
The windows of the Conference Centre end abruptly against the outside wall of the Secretariat building. It is as if the Conference Centre was slammed up against the Secretariat building and they were not built together. You know you are entering another building. They remain two distinctly different buildings, yet they combine with one another, and the buildings come together as the cultures of the UN come together; distinct, yet functioning seamlessly together.
The buildings are more than just a place where the work of the UN is done; they are meant to be an expression of what we stand for. In the coming months, as the Capital Master Plan prepares to get underway, iSeek will look at some of the individual architectural spaces and rooms of UN Headquarters and eventually other duty stations.