Ronald H. Brown United States Mission to the UN (New York City, New York)

 high-rise, 2009_construction, diplomatic / foreign mission / representation, postmodern (architecture)

368-foot, 22-story postmodern office building completed in 2009. Designed by Gwathmey, Siegel & Associates, it was built to house the Permanent Mission of the United States of America to the United Nations, and is named for Ronald H. Brown, former Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, who died in a plane crash while on a trade mission to Croatia.

The tower rising form the base is clad in white cast-concrete, and is largely rectangular in form, except for having a slightly bowed section of the west elevation, and a cut, rounded southeast corner that is clad in silver metal. The stark white tower contrasts with the taller blue-green glass of UN Plaza, which wraps around the mission and adjacent Uganda House. The base is also very contrasting, with an organic design.

The south end is clad in textured, grey stone, with no openings, and slopes up toward the right at the top; the north edge of this section also slopes diagonally. Extending from it to the north is an amorphous wall of glass, flat on the east side, and curving across the top and the down onto the north facade; it is bordered in aluminum. Set into the east glass wall is a cylindral metal entrance portal. A silver metal canopy juts out above, beginning at the stone section to the south and growing wider to the north, terminating in a stout flagpole that extends up above the base. In contrast to the more traditional glass on the east face of the base, the north side and top feature a scaly pattern of small metal panels. The west two-thirds of this section is interrupted by a grid wall of small, square glass panes in an aluminum frame (4 panes high), with another cylindrical entry portal. Another grey stone section is to the right, this one without slopes, and at the far end is a slightly shorter section of silver metal with a service door, and two loading docks separated by a secondary entrance with a glass-and-metal door.

The tower is set back from the base, and has its facades scored into rectangular panels with rows of small rivet-like dots. The windows don't begin until nearly a third of the way up the tower, where they start as small, narrow single-windows as grow progressively larger at each floor. There are four bays on the east facade, and eight on the north facade.

The curved, metal-clad section at the southeast corner has thin window bands across each floor, beginning one floor lower than the other windows. The metal here is scored into a criss-cross pattern, and this section rises above the main roof line, where the curve is fully expresses as a complete circle atop the roof. The west facade has a single bay of windows in the middle of the bowed section.

usun.state.gov/
www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/