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An Alvar Aalto conference room is in jeopardy in New York. Help, somebody!
A piece of New York's architectural heritage may be lost ifthe city's Landmarks Preservation Commission fails to broker an agreement to preserve the Kaufmann Conference Center, a masterpiece by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, on the top floor ofa 12-story office tower across from the United Nations. The current owners expressed a desire to redevelop the 4,500square-foot space, but the LPC persuaded them to refrain from action for go days-a moratorium that is due to expire on December 1 2-and will host a meeting November 30 of interested parties, in the words ofthe invitation, "to ensure that this legendary space remains well maintained and accessible to the interested public."
Right now, the center is neither well maintained nor accessible, even though it's one of the city's few notable modern interiors and the only surviving major Aalto work in town. At a time of unprecedented prosperity, New York must grant the center land mark status-as it did with the Four Seasons Restaurant and other modern classics-and keep it in place under a responsible custodian.
The center is a soaring space with a geometrical wood grid on the terrace-side windows. Sliding walls divide the blue-tile-accented lobby from the main reception hall and two smaller meeting rooms. The undulating white plaster ceiling reaches 22 feet at its highest point. The splayed ash-panel walls are overlaid by birch-rod ribs, and a cluster of tree-like bent birch laminas curves off to one side. Aalto and his wife, Elissa, designed every detail: the furniture, the light...