United Nations Headquarters, New York



Architect
 see below
Date Built
 Secretariat Building opened in January of 1951  other  buildings were added over time.  The Dag Hammarskjold Library Building was officially dedicated in 1961
Location
 Turtle Bay, New York
Description



According to the Wikipedia page for the UN Headquarters, a decision was made not to hold a competition for the design of the complex.  Instead a multinational team of famous architects was formed under the leadership of Wallace Harrison.  Harrison was an American whose practice had been responsible for the Rockerfeller Centre and the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts.  The team included N. D. Bassov from the Soviet Union, Gaston Brunfaut from Belgium, Ernest Cormier (Canada), Le Corbusier (France), Liang Seu-cheng (China), Sven Markelius (Sweden), Oscar Niemeyer (Brazil), Howard Robertson (United Kingdom), G. A. Soilleux (Australia), and Julio Vilamajó (Uruguay).  Again, according to Wikipedia, ".... After much discussion, Harrison, .... determined that a design based on Niemeyer's project 32 and Le Corbusier's project 23 would be developed for the final project. Le Corbusier's project 23 consisted of a large block containing both the Assembly Hall and the Council Chambers near the center of the site with the Secretariat tower emerging as a slab from the south. Niemeyer's plan was closer to that actually constructed, with a distinctive General Assembly building, a long low horizontal block housing the other meeting rooms, and a tall tower for the Secretariat."

- The General Assembly Building -















Suspended from the ceiling, above the stair landing connecting the lobby with the second-floor ceremonial entrance to the General Assembly Hall, is a Foucault Pendulum.






- General Assembly Hall -

A United Nations “Fact Sheet” says of the General Assembly Hall that it is, “…. 165 feet long by 115 feet wide, with a 75- foot ceiling - (and it) occupies the second, third and fourth floors. Representatives of Member States sit behind tables facing a raised speaker's rostrum and podium. From the viewer’s left to right sit the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the President of the General Assembly, and the Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management.  The Assembly Hall accommodates 193 delegations. Each delegation has six seats - three at the tables for full delegates and three behind them for their alternates.  All 1,898 seats are equipped with earphones, allowing the listener to "tune-in" either to the language being spoken on the floor or to interpretations into any of the Assembly's six official languages -- Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The interpreters sit in glass-walled booths overlooking the Hall. Television and film cameramen, broadcasters and other information personnel, and official verbatim reporters occupy similar booths.  Above and behind the speaker's rostrum are large panels listing the Member States of the Organization, with the corresponding results of votes also displayed. Delegates signal their country’s vote for or against a resolution, or their decision to abstain from a vote, by pressing green, red or yellow buttons on the tables in front of them.”




- Conference Room 4 -




Below: portraits of the men who have held the post of Scretary General.  The black wreath around Kofi Annan is because he had recently passed away.




- The Peace Window -

The 'Peace Window’, by the artist Marc Chagall, was a gift from the United Nations staff memebers, as well as Marc Chagall himself, presented to the United Nations as a memorial to Dag Hammarskjøld.    The 'Peace Window' was dedicated to his memory on 17 September 1964, exactly three years after Dag Hammarskjøld, then the second Secretary-General of the UN, and 15 other people with him died in a plane crash.






- The Mandela Statue -

This life-size statue of the late former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was unveiled at the United Nations by President Ramaphosa in 2018 on behalf of the government and the people of South Africa.  The statue was created by Andre Prinsloo and Andre Otto.  Prinsloo‚ along with Ruhan Janse van Vuuren‚ also worked on the nine-metre bronze Mandela statue that towers over the gardens at the Union Buildings in Tshwane. It is fitted with former President Nelson Mandela’s prison shoes that he wore during his days as political prisoner 46664 on Robben Island in Cape Town, where he served a jail term of 27 years.  In his address at the unveiling President Ramaphosa said that, “The statue is modelled after the day Nelson Mandela delivered his first speech to the United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid on June 22 1990. He urged the United Nations to maintain sanctions against South Africa until apartheid was abolished‚”  The unveiling took place on the 100th anniversary of Mandella's birth.
- The Dag Hammarskjöld Library -
"A new library building for the UN headquarters was proposed in 1952. .... The new facility was slated to cost $3 million.  By 1955, the collection was housed in the Secretariat Building and held 250,000 volumes in "every language of the world", according to The New York Times.  The Dag Hammarskjöld Library Building, designed by Harrison and Abramovitz, was officially dedicated in November 1961."








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 - The Security Council Chamber -
The UN website explains that, ".... The Security Council Chamber was furnished by Norway and designed by leading Norwegian architect, Arnstein Rynning Arneberg, and it’s easily identified by its central horseshoe-shaped table. A large mural by Norwegian artist, Per Lasson Krohg, symbolizing the promise of future peace and individual freedom, dominates the east wall."
 








- Economic and Social Council Chamber -
This Chamber was a gift from Sweden, and designed by the famous Swedish architect Svem Markelius. It was renovated in 2013.  The Chamber features a large orange and white curtain that hangs along the window wall.  Designed by the artist  Ann Edholm it was installed in 2016 and is entitled ‘Diaologos’. Apparently, according the the artist, ".... it should make the UN leaders willing to make decisions.”





- The sculpture Non-Violence -

The iconic sculpture of a gun with its barrel tied in a knot, has the official title of “Non Violence”.  It’s come to symbolize the UN’s commitment to world peace.  It was created by the Swedish sculptor and painter, Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd.  the “news.artnet.com" website explains that, “… Non-Violence was created after the artist’s friend, John Lennon, was killed outside his apartment building in December of 1980. Commissioned by Lennon’s partner, Yoko Ono, it was first installed in 1988 outside of New York’s United Nations building, at a ceremony attended by Reuterswärd, Yoko Ono, and the UN Secretary General at the time, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.”

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