United Nations Headquarters

Built on land donated by an American oil dynasty and designed by architects from a dozen countries, the UN Headquarters gave a fragile postwar experiment in international cooperation a permanent home overlooking the East River.

The United Nations was founded in 1945, when representatives of 50 nations signed the UN Charter in San Francisco in the aftermath of World War II, hoping to succeed where the failed League of Nations had not. The fledgling organization initially lacked a permanent home, and in 1946 John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated $8.5 million to purchase a stretch of industrial waterfront along Manhattan's East River as a headquarters site.

An international Board of Design led by American architect Wallace Harrison oversaw the project, drawing heavily on competing concepts submitted by French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier and Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, whose rival schemes were ultimately merged into the final plan. Construction proceeded from 1947 to 1952, producing a complex centered on the 39-story Secretariat Building, whose glass-curtain-wall design became one of the most influential and widely imitated skyscraper styles of the 20th century.

Although it occupies ordinary New York City land, the complex operates under special legal privileges established by the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement, giving it a measure of independence from certain local and national laws. In the decades since, member nations have filled its halls with donated artwork and gifts, turning the complex into an informal museum of international diplomacy alongside its working role as the UN's political and administrative center.