Ford Foundation Building

Manhattan, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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The Ford Foundation Building, a 12-story glass-and-steel office tower in East Midtown Manhattan, was completed in 1967 as the headquarters of the Ford Foundation, then the nation's largest private foundation. Designed by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo in the late modernist style, the structure consists of a cubic form supported by concrete piers and clad in Dakota granite, with entrances on both 43rd and 42nd Streets. Its most distinctive feature is a pioneering public atrium—the first of its kind in a Manhattan office building—designed by landscape architect Dan Kiley and filled with trees, shrubs, vines, and plantings, around which most offices are arranged to maximize visibility and connection. Built on the former site of the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled and formally dedicated in December 1967, the building has been designated a New York City Landmark. Following a major renovation between 2015 and 2018, it was renamed the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice and continues to receive critical recognition for its innovative design.