Midtown East Modern: Landmark Interiors & Iconic Architecture

Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice

320 E 43rd St
New York, NY
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Midtown East Modern: Landmark Interiors & Iconic Architecture

Join Docomomo US for a special day exploring some of the most significant examples of modern architecture and interiors in New York’s Midtown East neighborhood. The tour brings together landmark buildings, innovative design, and important preservation stories, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the ways modern buildings and interiors have been thoughtfully preserved, adapted, and celebrated.

The tour begins with two rare, designated New York City interior landmarks, both by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates: the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice and the UN Plaza Hotel lobby and Ambassador Grill. Docomomo US Executive Director Liz Waytkus, who led the fight to landmark the UN Plaza interior, will lead the group through that space.

Attendees have the option to add on an architecture-focused tour of the United Nations complex, a collaborative effort of 11 renowned architects resulting in a marvel of modernist design and the International Style. (20 spots available)*

The group will then meet back up and make a short stop at the Japan Society before concluding with a reception and light bites at Modulightor, the only Paul Rudolph-designed residence in New York City.


Friday, November 6th
10am-3pm


$155 Docomomo US members/$180 non-members with UN Tour Add-on

$125 Docomomo US Members/$150 Non-members without UN Tour

*Participants who are not joining the UN tour can access certain public spaces inside the UN on their own including the Visitors Lobby, UN Bookshop, Stamp counter, Gift shop, restrooms, and café.

Tour cost includes guides and access to all sites, plus a small reception at the end of the tour. Lunch is not included. Guests can grab a quick bite at the UN cafeteria, which is open to the public, even if you are not on the UN tour.

This is a walking tour and will take place rain or shine. Please wear comfortable shoes and dress appropriately. 

Refund Policy

All sales are final. If you need to cancel, the cost of the ticket can be applied to a future Docomomo US event or Docomomo US membership.  


Featured Sites

Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice

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 WWII. The Ford Foundation and its architects offered New York an alternative model for modern office buildings as they created an elegant, transparent glass cube, just twelve stories tall, framed in exposed Cor-Ten weathering steel and mahogany-colored 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.

Featured Sites

Ambassador Grill & Lounge, and One UN Plaza Hotel Lobby

The theatrical, U-shaped Ambassador Grill at One UN Plaza Hotel was completed in 1975 and opened in 1976. Located in a windowless room at the rear of the building, it features mirrored walls and a dramatic, vaulted faux skylight, which is backed by illuminated mylar panels. The dining and bar area is divided by angled walls, freestanding walls, serving counters, and several piers. Of particular interest is the glazed ceiling vault that snakes through both areas. The atrium-like reception area, completed in 1983, parallels the entrance along East 44th Street and features a stepped octagonal glass dome and a ramped hallway flanked by free-standing columns of unusual design. Built during an era when relatively few new hotels were constructed in New York City, these nearly intact lavish interiors are a distinctive example of both Late Modern and Postmodern design in the 1970s and 1980s.

Featured Sites

United Nations General Assembly Building

The General Assembly Building at the United Nations headquarters in New York City is an example of the modernization of building technology after World War II. The structure has a steel frame with English limestone flanking the east and west facades. The north facade is comprised of translucent glass panels, set into marble piers, corresponding with the 53.5-foot high plate glass window of the south facade, also set within a marble frame. The sloping roof and shallow copper dome on top of the steel structure demonstrate the dismissal of classical proportions in Modernist architecture and construction. The design and construction of the General Assembly building and the entire United Nations complex remains a monument to the international organization in the postwar era. At the time of construction, these structures provided a symbol of the unification of the world with the intention of maintaining peace.

Featured Sites

United Nations Secretariat

The United Nations Secretariat provides a monumental symbol for the UN and exhibits the ideals and innovation of building technology in the mid-twentieth century. It is a fine example of the free-hanging glass and metal curtain wall, and demonstrated that international collaboration among architects and other building professionals was possible. Even though the Secretariat Building was not the first manifestation of the International Style, it stimulated the mass-production of high-rise buildings with glass curtain walls in the New York City and the world. As such, the building became a visual symbol of postwar architecture throughout the world.

Featured Sites

The Modulightor Building

The Modulightor Building was designed by legendary 20th Century Modernist architect Paul Rudolph and is located in the heart of Manhattan’s Decorative Arts district.

 

The building includes MODULIGHTOR’s ground-floor showroom (plus a second floor prototyping area and a fabrication center on three basement floors — the fixtures are assembled in-house). Most notable — and frequently visited — is the amazing, light-filled Duplex apartment on the 3rd and 4th floors, which was designed by Rudolph.

 

Description taken from Modulightor.

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