Lever House (New York City, New York)

 office building, International Style (architecture) (Bauhaus), NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, 1952_construction, movie / film / TV location

307-foot, 21-story modernist office building completed in 1952 for the British soap company, Lever Brothers. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with interiors by Raymond Loewy Associates, it is considered one of the most important and influential Modernist buildings in New York City. It pioneered the use of the glass curtain wall--preceded in the city only by the U.N. Secretariat Building--and the dramatic break with the street wall. The building was also revolutionary in being the first skyscraper to utilize the clause in city zoning regulations that allowed a building to rise straight up without setbacks if it occupied only a quarter of the plot. Thus, it consists of a vertical slab rising above a low, horizontal base.

The main tower is "floated" above the 2-story base via thin pilotis. The base takes up the entire lot, topped by landscaped gardens, with the slab tower rising up near the north end, oriented east-west. The tower is clad in blue-green glass and stainless-steel. The ground level consists of open colonnaded space (with stainless-steel columns supporting the 2nd floor) flowing directly off the sidewalks with a planted courtyard open to the sky just south of the tower. Only about 30% of the ground floor is indoor space, the bulk of which is enclosed by glass panels. Tucked away towards the rear of the site are the elevator banks and a small auditorium. The 2nd floor, hovering over the entire site, originally contained a dining room. It takes the form of a horizontal slab wrapped around the open central courtyard. The steel columns below are recessed behind the plane of the 2nd-floor facade, giving a more weightless appearance.

Above the base, the tower rises to accommodate 19 office floors and additional levels of mechanical equipment at the top. The tower, only 53 feet wide, is a vertical slab set perpendicular to the avenue. The elevator and service core is located at the rear of the slab at the western edge and forms a solid masonry wall. The other three facades as well as the "returns" on the real wall are entirely glazed and give the building a crystalline and volumetric quality. At the west end of the north facade on 54th Street, there are metal louvers at the 2nd floor, and the ground floor has two loading docks and an entrance to the underground parking garage.

It was landmarked in 1982--as soon as it became eligible--and was extensively restored in 1998, when an Isamu Noguchi sculpture garden was added. Damien Hirst's Virgin Mother, a 35-foot, partially cross-sectioned pregnant nude, was installed in 2005.

Since 2003, the building has been home to Casa Lever Gardens, originally called Lever House Restaurant. The exterior was used as a recurring filming location for the USA Network series "White Collar" and S1E2 of "Suits" which filmed briefly in New York.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Iow-6KnDY