Opus Dei Headquarters (New York City, New York)

 office building, dormitory, religious center

225-foot, 17-story mixed-use building completed in 2001. Designed by May & Pinska, it is clad in red brick with limestone trim. The base is striped in the two materials, with a grey granite water table. This mixed-use building is a "city within the city" of sorts, and includes residential, office, and dining space for the members of Opus Dei, a Catholic sect. The building contains seven chapels, and six dining rooms for the residents of the building. Due to the docrtine of the Opus Dei sect, this building has different entrances for men and women on separate streets.

On Lexington Avenue there is an entrance recessed in a large arch, with wood-and-glass double-doors; the arch is topped by an oversized scrolled keystone, above which a recessed window is set at the 2nd floor. To either side of the arch the ground floor has a small, narrow window, and at the north end there is a recessed steel service door. The 2nd floor has two sets of very tall windows paired together on either side of the central, recessed window, all linked by a limestone lintel course. The 3rd-5th floors have five bays of smaller 2-over-2 windows with stone sills and lintels. The 6th floor has a similar window in the middle, and slightly-taller paired windows to each side. A stone band marks the setback on this facade, with a terrace on top. The top floors have five bays of windows like those at the 3rd-5th floors, but without the lintels. A stone band runs across the middle of the 15th floor, with another setback to the top two floors.

The south facade on 34th Street has another recessed entry with double-doors set in an arch. Above the doors, still within the arch, is a low double-window. To the east are three windows and at the end are two garage doors. To the west of the arch are four windows spaced closer together and set higher in the wall. The west end of the facade's lower floors has two bays of single-windows, with a setback at the end above the 6th floor, and the other bay changing to two windows at the 6th-7th floors, back to one at the 8th-12th floors, and back to two at the 13th-14th floors, with a single-windows at the 15th floor below the second setback. A recessed bay of single-windows separates this wing from the rest of the building, beginning at the 3rd floor. The rest of the south facade has nine bays of windows, with varying heights by floor, and some limestone spandrels. There are some very shallow setbacks at the higher floors, with the east end terminating in a terrace at the 15th floor, and the center section narrowing to three window bays before extending to the main roof line.

Founded in Spain in 1928, the Opus Dei movement established its first American center in Chicago in 1949. Critics of the conservative organization over the years have raised allegations of secrecy, elitism and undue influence with the Vatican. The secretive right-wing Catholic order is referenced in the novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and resultant movie as well.