The Ford Foundation's impressive (and much needed) renovation

2018-12-30T16:01:00-05:00

Astonishingly, the feel of the original emerged largely intact. [Darren] Walker, an aficionado of mid-century design with an eye for detail, spent serious money to salvage whatever was salvageable. Hanging brass lighting fixtures, door handles, granite-topped credenzas (some with embedded hot plates), Platner tables and chairs, black walnut bookshelves, bronze trim — 1,500 items in all — were given back their mid-century gleam. The Ford Foundation Building has become a museum of itself.

After many years of detailed renovation, the Ford Foundation has been successfully renovated and is ready to house 2,000 occupants. According to New York Magazine, "[the Ford Foundation] has withdrawn into a fraction of its previous space, halving the size of the president’s once imperial, now merely princely, suite. That shrinkage frees up space for three other nonprofit groups to rent, plus an art gallery and an abundance of meeting rooms."

Photo: Richard Barnes/Ford Foundation

Built in 1967 in Manhattan, New York, the Ford Foundation was designed by Dan Kiley and Roche-Dinkeloo Architects as a 160-foot “corporate greenhouse.” In his book, Manhattan Atmospheres (2014), the historian David Gissen argued that the Ford Foundation was a significant project in the history of environmental design for its ability to marry the image of botanical conservation with burgeoning practices in worker productivity, allowing the building to receive generous funding in its production of a building h...

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The Ford Foundation's impressive (and much needed) renovation