Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice

 interesting place, Modern (architecture)

174-foot, 12-story modernist office building completed in 1967. Designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates, the building consists of a glass-and-steel cube held up by piers made of concrete and clad with light grey-pink Dakota granite. The main entrance is set along 43rd Street. A second entrance on 42nd Street leads to a large public atrium, the first such atrium in an office building in Manhattan. The atrium contains landscaping from Dan Kiley and includes plants, shrubs, trees, and vines. Most offices in the building are north and west of the atrium and are visible from other offices in the building.

The building was commissioned for the Ford Foundation, then the largest private foundation in the United States, after Henry Heald became foundation president. The Ford Foundation Building was announced in 1963 and completed in 1968 on the former site of the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled. Between 2015 and 2018, the Ford Foundation Building underwent a major renovation and restoration project.

Due to the area's topography, the 42nd Street entrance leads directly to the first floor, while the 43rd Street entrance is at a higher level and leads to the second floor. The spaces between the lot lines and the facades on 42nd and 43rd streets contain red-brown brick pavers. A significant portion of the facade is a glass wall with weathering steel, and over 60,000 panes were used in the construction.

The southern elevation is on 42nd Street. The western part of this facade is a windowless granite slab. The eastern portion consists of two large granite piers: one at the center of the facade, and one at the southeastern corner. On the eastern section of the facade, the first through tenth stories have a recessed glass wall, while the eleventh and twelfth stories are recessed at a lesser depth and are carried over this recess by a glass-walled enclosure with an I-beam on top. The 12th floor protrudes further out than the 11th floor, and a catwalk hangs underneath the 11th floor. A revolving door is between the two diagonal piers, and there is an additional set of doors in the space between the center pier and the western section of the facade.

The eastern elevation faces Tudor City. It is similar to the 42nd Street elevation: the northern section is clad with granite while the southern section is a recessed glass wall, and there is a diagonally-oriented pier in the center of the facade. The southeast-corner pier does not face onto the eastern elevation. The 11th & 12fth floors, as well as the catwalk, are also recessed to a lesser extent than the 1st through 10th floors.

The easternmost part of the north facade is a windowless granite slab. The rest of the facade is composed of glass-walled offices between four narrow granite piers that divide the windows into three vertical bays. The 2nd-floor entrance is recessed significantly inward, creating a brick-paved porte-cochère behind the four piers. There are two brass double doors at this entrance. The 3rd & 4th floors are recessed as well, but at a progressively smaller scale, and the 11th & 12th floors are also slightly recessed.

The western elevation faces a private driveway. It is faced with granite, with a narrow bay of windows and two wider window bays from north to south. This private driveway also has brick pavers, a loading dock, and garage and service entrances.

The Ford Foundation Building includes a 1⁄3-acre public atrium with a ceiling 160 feet high. The garden inside the atrium was designed by Dan Kiley, one of the architect Eero Saarinen's frequent collaborators. The garden contains a series of tiers sloping up from 42nd to 43rd Street, with an elevation change of 13 feet. As originally arranged, the atrium had 18 aquatic plants in a pool, 37 trees, 148 vines, 999 shrubs, and 22,000 ground cover plants. The plantings were arranged around a centrally located square fountain. A glass roof composed of greenhouse-like "sawtooth" panels is located above the atrium.

www.fordfoundation.org/
www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/arts/design/ford-foundation-...