• Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
    1·
    3 months ago

    The UN Secretariat building was designed by an international team of architects (most notably Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer) and completed in 1950. It was the first important “International Style” modernist skyscraper in New York - exemplified here here by a simple, unadorned rectangle with reflective glass curtain walls on either side.

    Glass box office buildings became almost cliche in mid-century NYC, but the UN remains unusual in being set apart in the skyline, uncrowded by neighbors.

    • Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
      1·
      3 months ago

      I have mixed feelings about Le Corbusier’s architecture (to say nothing of his urban planning philosophy - he clearly influenced Robert Moses), but I think the UN Secretariat building was one of his successes.

      An aside: If you look at the full resolution version (downloadable on flickr), you can see the HF amateur radio antenna on the roof. Nerds are everywhere, even/especially at the UN. There’s also a family taking a group picture on the street in front.

      • Orin@mastodon.social
        1·
        3 months ago

        @mattblaze@federate.social The vertical is for ham HF? Interesting. I could picture other reasons for HF, but wouldn’t expect ham.

        • Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
          1·
          3 months ago

          @auroran@mastodon.social Yeah, there’s a small but active amateur radio club for the staff and friends there (4U1UN).

          • Bill Ricker@mastodon.radio
            1·
            3 months ago

            @mattblaze@federate.social @auroran@mastodon.social
            Geopolitical-aware nerds at the UN, figures.

            I would expect the station would be dual-use in a communications emergency. There’s usually a reason besides staff morale to allow roof use like that: contingencies.

            I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a Rockwell full coverage 5kW 0-30Mc transceiver from the supply available to the state CD bunkers in 1950s-60s. Beautiful.

            • Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
              1·
              3 months ago

              @n1vux@mastodon.radio @auroran@mastodon.social Way back when I visited a few times, it was just some higher-end Yaesu rig. I think the station is just amateur; the NY UN HQ isn’t where most the operational stuff (peacekeeping, etc) is based.

              • Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
                1·
                3 months ago

                @n1vux@mastodon.radio @auroran@mastodon.social Also, it’s an off the shelf HF amateur-band-only vertical, not the monster wideband log periodic that you see on typical “real” gov’t type stations.

                • Bill Ricker@mastodon.radio
                  1·
                  3 months ago

                  @mattblaze@federate.social @auroran@mastodon.social
                  Ah well, then it’s at best a limited contingency for Secretary General to get a voice connection to some besieged capital. I expected better of a cold war institution.
                  (OTOH that would’ve been a decent contingency 50 years ago.)

      • Bill Ricker@mastodon.radio
        1·
        3 months ago

        @mattblaze@federate.social
        I wouldn’t blame LeC for the excesses of Moses but yes, his and contemporaneous urban planning violated his own ‘human scale’ critereon; planned dystopias. We’re lucky so few visions were completed.

        Is there a planned city drawn & built in the automobile era as successful as Paris or D.C., drawn & built for horse-carriages ?

      • Bill Ricker@mastodon.radio
        1·
        3 months ago

        @mattblaze@federate.social
        This view of the Secretariat only focuses thought on your discussion, considering it by itself as a historic building.✅️

        Usually it’s reduced to straight-man for the GA building’s punchline, a study in contrast.
        Which is fine, that was the point C & N &al were making. ( Similar to unicameral Nebraska statehouse. )