Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice
The Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice (also known as 321 East 42nd Street, 320 East 43rd Street, or the Ford Foundation Building) is a 12-story office building in East Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Designed by architect Kevin Roche and engineering partner John Dinkeloo in the late modernist style, the building was one of the first that Roche-Dinkeloo produced after they became heads of Eero Saarinen's firm.
Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice
Ford Foundation Building
320 East 43rd Street
Manhattan, New York
United States
1963
1967
December 8, 1967
2016–2018
$16 million[1]
Ford Foundation
174 feet (53 m)
concrete and steel frame
12
John Dinkeloo
Albert S. Bard Civic Award
Twenty-five Year Award
October 21, 1997
1969, 1970
The building is designed as a glass-and-steel cube held up by piers made of concrete and clad with Dakota granite. The main entrance is along 43rd Street. A second entrance on 42nd Street leads to a large public atrium, the first such space in an office building in Manhattan. The atrium contains landscaping from Dan Kiley and includes plants, shrubs, trees, and vines. Most of the building's offices are north and west of the atrium and are visible from other offices.
The building was commissioned for the Ford Foundation, then the largest private foundation in the United States, after Henry Heald became foundation president. The Ford Foundation Building was announced in 1963 and completed in 1968 on the former site of the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled. Between 2015 and 2018, the Ford Foundation Building underwent a major renovation and restoration project, and it was renamed the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice. The Ford Foundation Building has been critically acclaimed for its design, both after its completion and after the renovation. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building and its atrium as city landmarks in 1997.
