Almost sixty years after Wallace K. Harrison was invited to design the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York City, plans have been unveiled for another UN skyscraper designed by Fumihiko Maki which would "consolidate currently scattered operations into a single structure that would rise on the western portion of the Robert Moses Playground, on First Avenue between East 41st and 42nd streets."
The design, which is awaiting approval from the city, would be an "800,000-to-900,000-square-foot tower" standing at 546ft tall and containing "office space for 2,700 U.N. employees on the upper floors and a cafeteria, communal spaces and bike storage on the lower levels" with constructing beginning in 2015 and completion set for 2018. Jeremy Soffin, spokesman for the UN Development Corporation, has said that it has been "designed to be contextual to the existing UN campus." According to DNAinfo New York, the main entrance to the building would be located on First Avenue (southeast corner of East 42nd Street) with a tunnel under 42nd Street connecting the two UN buildings together.
Fumihiko Maki, who was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1993 and the AIA Gold Medal in 2011, has worked extensively in the US and is currently working on 150 Greenwich Street (4 World Trade Centre) which is nearing completion.
More images at DNAinfo New York.
