When Lever House opened in 1952, it was immediately received with acclaim and wonder. Commissioned by Unilever for its headquarters, the slender, 21-story blue-green monolith oriented perpendicularly to the street was the first all-glass modernist architecture skyscraper to be built in New York City. It elegantly stretched above its squat neoclassical neighbours and, seemingly, floated above its open plaza and transparent lobby.
In its review at the time, the Architectural Record magazine praised the Skidmore Owings & Merrill-designed building as ‘marvellously ingenious’. Passersby would crowd the sidewalks when window washers descended the skyscraper in a custom gondola to squeegee and polish the four curtain walls. It was a pathbreaking symbol of corporate America and ushered in a generation of International Style headquarters across Manhattan.
