The UN Building Looks out of Place - And That Was The Point | Walking Tour | Architectural Digest

[@Stephen_Lafferty]

Yes, please make more walking tours discussing architectural styles! It is a very enjoyable way to help understand the built environment all around me :D

[@Xanderall]

I love these videos! I learn so much! Mr. Wyetzner is a great host, plus the cinematography and editing are superb!

[@ASofiaHCosta]

Absolutely! These videos are such a treat at this point. What a wonderful communicator he is

[@Ari_Wyns]

Mr. Wyetzner is an incredible educator. It comes natural to him, and I look forward to every video that he’s featured in this channel. I would take a course with him any day!

[@nickhiggins5653]

Yes, more of this type of content please!

[@arthurfariasdealmeida8746]

Correction: The building we see today was mainly designed by Niemeyer. Le Corbusier was traveling when the final decisions were made and Niemeyer took the lead and made the major decisions. Only the positioning of the assembly followed Corbusier's wishes (his ego had been hurt)

[@edflaherty1887]

For several years in the early years of the UN it was located at the sight of the 1939 & 1964 - 1965 worlds fain in Queens. The building is now the Queens Museum and formally the NYC building at the fairs !

[@miriamzajfman4305]

It is always a pleasure to to visit different places with you in New York . Thank you for knowledge you are sharing with us

[@daleyue]

Love this! Please do more of this, AD!

[@magicknight13]

Heck yeah architectural history with the best of the best!!! Let's gooooo!

[@airdailyx]

Mike is back!! Yessss!

[@kathlenewang539]

Fascinating stuff.

[@steini6771]

Another great one! Thank you -

[@NateRosenPlus]

Wasn’t this posted already? Could’ve sworn I saw this a few months back

[@oscarsalesgirl296]

They were mad that everybody thought modernist architecture looks terrible

[@rudegirlnycloy]

Dear AD, please, please, please continue posting videos about architecture. Enough with the lame pseudo celebrities and their paper mansions and tacky wares.

[@jermainec2462]

No ... 😂

[@TallStax]

PLEASE HAVE THIS GUY ON MORE OFTEN THANK YOU

[@danielpalmer8713]

Ray Hood was the lead architect of the original Rockefeller center design. Wally only took over because Hood died. And because he was related to the Rockefellers. I live in Albany. You can see the pinnacle of Nelson and Wally's collaboration here.

[@neetincleats]

Thank you for making these videos! They’re a gift.

[@michaelcharley8384]

Only in New York City would an institution of such prominence (putting aside whether the UN is evil or not for a second) have such little positive impact on the surrounding area over the decades. To wit a casino is being proposed on the south side of the campus.

[@richardpeterson1398]

The Secretaite Tower was constructed in 1949, and opened in 1950, I saw a photo taken on Oct. 24th, 1949, showing the under construction skyscraper.

[@josephpiskac2781]

Far more information on the UN then i have ever been exposed to. I am fortunate to have visited the site

[@michaelhockus8208]

thanks for the tour!

[@Hocus_Cadabra]

Fabulous project, particularly the Secretariate!

[@sergioreisjr]

Nice content! 😁👏🏼

[@samgeorge4798]

The secretaite building perfectly embodies the ideas and goals of the UN. People have a lack of appreciation for where the international style is best used. People saying its ugly usaly cant to produce a alternative design language that isint inharently flawed as a building representing the world.

[@REDnBLACKnRED]

Exactly! It is perfect for what it represents.

[@PjRjHj]

Ideas and Goals? Well maybe so, as it was designed by authoritarian utopians (Oscar Niemeyer being a communist, along with Charles-Édouard Jeanneret being a psychopath)

[@rollinwithunclepete824]

Very interesting... I love these videos!

[@equagliato]

I’ve got a feeling that I have already watched this video. Is this a reupload?

[@yeassablij7529]

It looks like a chocolate bar worthy of crunching 🙂

[@alessandroschiavon1237]

Yes please. Those videos are great!

[@jakubstrumillo]

My grandfather Andrzej Strumiłło during 1982-1984 period, direct Graphic Design Unit (GDU) in this building.

[@donteattidepods]

Alvar Aalto mentioned

[@Grandstreet1]

"It looks out of place everywhere..."

[@REDnBLACKnRED]

He meant in terms of cultural context

[@PjRjHj]

​@@REDnBLACKnRED culturally and aesthetically

[@LuukvdHoogen]

really? as european I'd rather visit the UN building than the white house and capitol combined. It is such an icon

[@Peter_WongVI]

Yes, more please.

[@MysteryBooms]

Yes, international subjects would be welcome. Maybe w/ regional variations noted.

[@shirleyjhaney1041]

I went. I got so excited my knees wouldn’t stop shaking. Just the greatness. Not the building. Fortunately I came to my senses and now figure they …. are annoying.

[@adrianherpe]

1:52 I think Frank Underwood is up to something.

[@HiHello-ql3su]

Yes more please

[@lwaldron9745]

Hmm. I wouldn't be surprised if our next presidential administration does some, umm, REDEVELOPMENT in the Turtle Bay area.

[@seahorsefencing]

Idiot politican "add dome, spend more tax payer money because congress won't approve it unless we spend more for no reason"

[@moritz7138]

makes me mad to describe Bauhaus style without mentioning the name ahhhhhh

[@willromeny1]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@oiaeyu]

Its so ugly 😍

[@DefenseOnTitan]

Not to me they aren't

[@poohoo4495]

LMAO 🤣🤣🤣

[@ettajfan5882]

Agree!

[@jefif]

@@DefenseOnTitan🤓

[@jermainec2462]

Not ugly but plain ...

[@vladsnape6408]

The video is well timed, before the UN becomes irrelevant, over the next few years, and goes the way of the League of Nations.

[@dariuspk2850]

Yes, international style…the soulless, anti-human style

[@danielmalinen6337]

Boring? There is so much going on in the architecture of the UN building that it is anything but boring.

[@Tommy_o7]

Sovless

[@jkbbumblebee]

White House 🇺🇸 ➡️ United Nations 🇺🇳 Next on the list: Pentagon Vatican City Kremlin

[@Factory051]

We are blessed. 2025 Year of coops.

[@marinedrive5484]

Some interiors are interesting with nice detailing, but the exterior shapes are intensely minimal to the extent of brutality -- Brutalism. Much like the building itself, the UN is becoming increasingly irrelevant because the rest of the world sees it as primarily a Western construct that is out of touch with their aspirations.

[@ScottGunMag69]

They need to turn this into luxury condos as worthless as UN is.

[@GilbertBotham]

I mean...the UN did eradicate small pox.

[@kimeiga]

its a great building but during un week there's so much traffic that hits us on the east side so i wish it was in Albany or something

[@jonasrettig327]

Das heißt doch Bauhaus und nicht "international Style". Sprich deutsch.

[@PeterEconomy]

Yeah -- I was thinking Bauhaus too

[@Parallacks]

How fitting for this video to come out now, as our country destroys the legacy of the UN as we speak.

[@Julia-yj6gr]

Lol the un now just as flat and disposable as the building if the un.

[@BrendanHannaway-wj1ox]

No,no,no the building will be torn down and relocated to South Africa. Such a bad idea to have so many crooks, drug dealers and chemists in one room. Free New York City!

[@artwerksDallas]

ITS NOT AN UGLY BUILDING. ITS A VERY ELEGANT MODERN IDEOLOGY. MOST PEOPLE WHO CRITICIZE THIS BUILDING JUST ARE REALLY CRITICIZING THE FACT THAT THIS BUILDING REPRESENTS GLOBALIZATION. WHICH THEY HATE. GLOBALIZATION IS A RELIGIOUS TRAIT. ALL PEOPLES ARE THE SAME. BUT WITH UNIQUE CULTURAL IDENTITY

[@Johnathan.David.Trewhitt.]

The western equivalent to the communist bloc apartment.

[@pietervoogt]

3:19 Nice illustration of the development toward ugliness. In the middle building there are still arched windows at the top and half way. In the final building every organic form and all variation have been erased. The building has become a vertical desert, but with even less variation than a real desert.

[@TroybleMakerExtraordinar]

Like I needed another reason to dislike the UN...

[@millcity9711]

Woodrow Wilson's wet dream....

[@moritz7138]

what are the others? I always thought its been the one organisation being able to unite us or at least make us talk in a century of conflicts and crises.

[@leonardovictor2440]

Of course Niemeyer had his finger in a building so ugly. He is the father of ugly buildings in the 20th century that ages poorly over the years. The father of concrete and glass ugliness.

[@sergnemo2379]

пирамиды хеопса лучше. ваш продукт снесут или взорвут. а пирамиды будут стоять "вечно".

[@oscarsalesgirl296]

looks evil

[@oscarsalesgirl296]

and is evil

[@Molo71]

That place is a useless place in the world.

[@WilliamACastro]

I think this design style is extremely ugly, it's very square, it has no curves.

[@cheekychappy1234]

The General assembly building is only curves.

[@cleo1396]

UGLY