offices inside the ford foundation building

#Offices inside the ford foundation building install

They added, wouldn’t that money have been better put to philanthropic use?ĭavid W. Even in its good points, they said, it was a one-off, since few organizations could afford $17 million (roughly $115 million today) for a new home. This is not to say the building did not have critics. “On the third day most of the shades went up and stayed up.” The court, waved and began to relax,” Mr.

“The next day they peeped cautiously out, saw other shades up, found friends across William Zinsser noted in Life magazine in March 1968 that about half the employees kept their window shades fully drawn on the first day after moving in. Garden with a few potted plants, mind you, or a conventional plaza dotted with Moore and Noguchi sculpture and tucked inside a building, but a veritable urban park.” The New Yorker said in December 1967 that the “most spectacular feature, which distinguishes it from every other office structure in the world, is an indoor park - not a small enclosed Dunlap/The New York Times View of the atrium looking toward East 42nd Street. A small pool tucked into this terraced park quickly filled with coins.ĭavid W. To be a “park with trees and shrubs and flowering plants - a place to look at and walk around, a place to enjoy some greenery even in the depths of winter.” The landscape architect was Dan Kiley, Its atrium, framed by 10-story-high glass walls, was supposed It was, first of all, roughly half as large as it could have been under zoning regulations. He said the building was also designed to contribute to the city. It allowed employees “to be aware of the existence of other members of the foundation, people who share their common aims and purpose - the family of effort to which they belong.” Roche said the design of the building, in which so many office interiors were visible from other offices, was intended to break down the isolation imposed by anonymous work cubicles. Dinkeloo received as successors to the practice of Eero Saarinen, Dunlap/The New York Times A view across the atrium at the Ford Foundation Building.Įven in this crowded portfolio, however, the Ford Foundation Building stands out. The 60 Wall Street tower and two new buildings for New York University.ĭavid W. The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust at Battery Park City the renovation of the Central Park Zoo the expansion of the Jewish Museum Met the United Nations Plaza Hotel and office buildings Roche smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if to suggest, well, really, he had had other things to do: numerous wings, galleries and courts at the Dinkeloo died in 1981.)Īsked why he had let whole decades pass without taking a peek, Mr. Roche has been back to the building only three or four times since its completion in 1967.

#Offices inside the ford foundation building install

And the foundation, recognizing the public’s interest in its headquarters, plans to install stations around the garden this year on which visitors can take a video tour and examine

Roche’s work at the Museum of the City of New York, The building has drawn appreciative new attention in a show of Mr. But this is the year to take another look at the building, among the most renowned and recognizable of the city’s modern landmarks, with C-shaped officeįloors embracing a lushly landscaped public garden. Roche has rarely had time to visit the building that first put him in the spotlight 45 years ago, the Ford Foundation Building on East 42nd Street. With projects like this, it’s little wonder that Mr. “The architects, Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, have devised a wraparound format with a few long-vista galleries cutting through a maze of smaller ones.”Īs a result, he said, “There are no wrong turns here.” “More space wouldn’t mean much if it weren’t well used, but it is,” Holland Cotter wrote in his New York Times review of the revitalized galleries. Dunlap/The New York Times Kevin RocheĪt 89, the architect Kevin Roche finds himself back in the spotlight with the opening this week of the renovated American Wing at