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In 1998 Unilever sold the building; the new owners replaced the crumbling steel and glass with an aluminum and glass curtain wall – completed in 2001 and again designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The curtain wall was the second to be installed in New York City amidst the era's largely masonry architecture, helping to evolve the city's office buildings to an International style. Under developers Brookfield Properties and WatermanClark, the project includes a restoration of the building's lobby, plaza, interior office spaces, terraces, third-floor lounge and mechanical systems. Externally, Lever House is characterised by its rectangular form that is surrounded by a glass curtain facade and stainless steel detailing, and elevated over a marble-lined ground floor plaza.
After winning approvals, the $100 million Lever House renovation is moving ahead
Unilever, the parent of Lever Brothers, moved most of its offices out of the building in 1997 and it was renovated by RFR Realty for use as a multi-tenant office tower. Now a third of the way done, the building is set to open in the first quarter of 2023. WatermanClark is hearing proposals from prospective tenants, who can begin construction on their floors starting this summer.
Reimagining Lever House, a NYC Landmark, for the Future of Work
Currently 30 percent through construction, the project is scheduled to open to the public on July 8th, 2022. It is known for its green-hued glass curtain wall and small stature compared to surrounding office buildings, with each tower floor plate measuring just 11,000 square feet (3,350 square metres). In April 1952, architecture firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill unveiled its newest office building in New York City’s Midtown to spectators, business leaders, and fanfare from the press. Built as the new headquarters for soap company Lever Brothers, it brought a facade of glass and steel to a Park Avenue dominated by brick and stone.
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Still, newer, higher-end buildings have rebounded much more quickly than older ones with fewer amenities. In 2001, SOM – now equipped with five decades of expertise in high-performance facade design technology – returned to reestablish Lever House’s original grandeur. Working closely with the Landmarks Preservation Commission, SOM restored the building while maintaining the integrity of the original design.
SOM partners Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois designed the 21-story building to serve as headquarters of the Lever Brothers soap company, and it was constructed from 1950 to 1952 at 390 Park Avenue. Now SOM has been retained by new owners who want to restore and upgrade the building for continued office use in the 21st century. Since it was the headquarters of a soap business, the use of an all-glass facade would make the building easy to clean as well as maintain its glimmer on the skyline. A system was created with a rooftop window-washing gondola that was able to move on tracks to clean the glass. The curtain wall is also completely sealed without operable windows to prevent the passage of dirt from the city into the building, and the heat-resistant glass helped reduce cooling costs.
When it was completed, Lever House was among the first skyscrapers to use glass curtain walls, marking a definitive shift from the aesthetic of masonry buildings. Consequently, it gained landmark status just 30 years after completion, in 1982, demonstrating a change of attitude towards the preservation of modern heritage. In 2001, SOM began the renovation of the facades, using high-performance materials while preserving the original architectural image. The construction of Lever House changed Park Avenue in Midtown from an avenue with masonry apartment buildings to one with International-style office buildings.
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SOM's Lever House receives a $100 million refresh - The Architect's Newspaper
SOM's Lever House receives a $100 million refresh.
Posted: Fri, 01 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
The rest of the floors rising up the building contained offices, and a penthouse suite was located on the twenty first floor. The last three floors of the building contained the mechanical spaces, which on the exterior were opaque, giving a contrast and end to the rest of the tower that was covered in glass. Many of the materials on the ground floor are now deteriorating, while inside, the 21 storeys of offices still rely on its original 20th-century mechanical systems. Architecture firm SOM is renovating the 1950s Lever House skyscraper that it designed in New York in an effort to preserve the modernist office building's "very important legacy". The studio is known for the construction of multiple skyscrapers internationally, including the world's tallest skyscraper, Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Born in Kansas City in 1909, he graduated magna cum laude from the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois in 1931. Since architectural commissions were scarce during the Depression, Mr. Luckman took a job as a draftsman in the advertising department of the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company. His success at that firm brought him an offer in 1935 to become sales manager of the Pepsodent Company, where his marketing techniques were credited with quadrupling profits. "Lever House is so important to the history of our firm and modern architecture, and we wanted to upgrade it to look as close to its original appearance as possible," concluded Cooper.
Sent every Thursday and featuring a selection of the best reader comments and most talked-about stories. On either side, the lounge area leads out onto a terrace overlooking the street below. Along with horticultural designer Patrick Cullina, Reed Hilderbrand outfitted the terraces with Whitespire birch trees interspersed with low-lying vegetation, flowers, and shrubs.
The design of the Lever House offsets the tall office tower from the horizontal base. The horizontal base is lifted off of the ground plane by pilotis except for a small enclosed portion, providing a public plaza underneath and a threshold between the exterior and interior of the building. Here, the ground floor has space for displays, waiting visitors, an auditorium, and a demonstration kitchen. Overhead, the plaza's water-damaged plaster ceiling will be substituted for a more durable version, while the surrounding stainless steel columns, black limestone and white marble walls will be restored with the help of material scientists. On the third floor, the developers have tapped Los Angeles-based firm Marmol Radziner to design a tenant-only club that will feature a conference hall, restaurant, and lounge, as well as 15,000 square feet of outdoor terraces atop the building’s lengthy podium.
Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. William Lever's company survived his death, and after later merging with a Dutch company, it was rechristened as Unilever in 1930. SOM is striving to meet LEED Gold through its improvements to the building's environmental performance, which is the second-highest certification attainable by the green building rating system. "Its relationship to Park Avenue, with its unique floorplate and the direct access to daylight, nature, and views up and down the avenue, makes this an opportune moment to reinvest in the building," Cooper said. "It stands out among all the large-scale commercial development underway around the city." "Lever House introduced the International Style to America and transformed the design of urban towers around the world," explained SOM partner Chris Cooper.
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