United Nations Secretariat Building

The United Nations Secretariat Building is an International Style skyscraper designed by Wallace Harrison, and built between 1949 and 1951, for a reported $65.0 million dollars, in New York, NY.

United Nations Secretariat Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The United Nations Secretariat Building is also known, or has been known as, UN Headquarters, or U.N. Building.

Its precise street address is 750 1st Avenue, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

When the UN decided its headquarters would be located in the US, several cities were considered. To tip the scales towards New York, John D. Rockefeller Jr. paid $8.5 million for an option on the land where the complex is located today and donated it to the UN in December 1946.

The building has been restored 4 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 1964, 1967, 1980 and 2014.

Wallace Harrison was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

But that's not all, there was also a whole team of architects involved, which included: Oscar Niemeyer, Le Corbusier, Gaston Brunfaut, Liang Seu-Cheng, Sven Markelius, Howard Robertson, Argyle Soilleux Garnet, Julio Vilamajo, Nikolai Bassov, and Ernest Cormier.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the United Nations Secretariat Building a reality:

• Heintges & Associates in charge of Facade Consultancy
• Per Krohg as the collaborating Artist

The United Nations Secretariat Building can be categorized as an International Style building.

The United Nations Secretariat Building was designed in 1947. By 1947 the International Style movement had already left its early days behind and could be considered a mature movement, which does not mean it was loved and accepted by everyone, on the contrary. The International Style was accepted by the architecture community way before it was by the general public, and it is therefore likely that the United Nations Secretariat Building was not well received by everyone at the time.

The United Nations Secretariat Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and reinforced concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.

This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a blue-tinted glass curtain wall with double-hung windows and spandrels in a darker, green-like color. The curtain wall is divided into four main sections by three different technical floors, which are covered with a grid of louvered frames.

As opposed to many skyscrapers, the detailing of the curtain wall empathizes the horizontal lines instead of the verticals.