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Official dedication ceremonies are taking place this week for the new home of the Ford Foundation which been occupying rented offices on Madison Avenue and has now moved into its permanent handsome quarters on East forty-second Street next to do a city park and but a stone's throw from the United Nations the building will I think be an architectural landmark the years to come like leave a house designed by architect Gordon bunch at which was a prototype of a new sort of office structure in the early one nine hundred fifty S. like Seagram's designed by architect Mr Vander over some years later and like Columbia Broadcasting building designed by the late aero Saarinen the Ford Foundation is home designed by architect Kevin Roach was also built without strict regard to cost as would be a commercial office building on expensive land in a congested part of the city like its predecessors the Ford Foundation chose elegance of style quality of materials and an original treatment of quite your area considerable space being sacrificed from the point of view of the commercial office builder who would have filled to the very limit with income producing square footage the maximum bulk allowable and the zoning law the Ford Foundation not only built less building the would otherwise be permitted on the site like it's three corporate predecessors but built this building to the pioneering design of a top notch architect carried it out with the most meticulous detailing thereby it cheating distinction as well as their ability. To describe this complex structure and its interesting interplay of function and design would take more time than I'm given for these brief notices on or around New York the building deserves analysis in depth and perhaps I will have an opportunity to report my reactions further at a future time for a general description I refer you to the extensive story on the building by critic Ada Louise Huxtable in the New York Times for Sunday November twenty sixth and I'm sure that many of my listeners will at least have passed by the building I noticed it's remarkable form notably the multi-level garden in the high glass cage it is a unique contribution to the progress of contemporary office building design in that it reverses the usual pattern of a compact tower surrounded by open space with a broad Plaza facing the street like the Seagram Building this has instead embraced its open space in this case an actually a covered courtyard within two sides of its lowest stories and all four sides of the upper two This creates an extraordinary feeling of intimacy and I should suppose as a core among its occupants My only reservation as a result of a cursory introductory visit is a certain overall solemnity bordering on drabness resulting from the consistent use of the dark gray granite and rusty bronze metal with which all the exposed services are covered when this is the bright colors that might have been applied judiciously to many of the structural panels not only in the courtyard but also on the exterior such a use of color was effectively used in the buildings by Jose set in and around Boston and Cambridge such as the Holyoke Center at Harvard to which this building could be compared in size and function but which has a visual brilliant survive acidy that is absent from the Ford Foundation is a somewhat solemn new home but this is a minor criticism and New Yorkers can well be proud of this handsome new monument and on midtown seen designed by architect Kevin Roach as the Robert C. wind very quick at large architecture and planning.