Noted US Architect to Overhaul UN Headquarters

U.S. architect Michael Adlerstein will take over the lagging project to restore U.N. headquarters.

U.S. architect Michael Adlerstein, who has helped renovate buildings ranging from the Statue of Liberty to the Taj Mahal, will take over the lagging project to restore U.N. headquarters, the United Nations said on Monday.

Adlerstein, a New Yorker, will be the new executive director of the so-called capital master plan, a $1.88 billion plan to modernize the iconic 55-year-old skyscraper overlooking Manhattan's East River, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced.

The job has been vacant a year since real estate veteran Louis Frederick Reuter, also American, quit after 10 months in frustration at what he called the difficulty of working within the U.N. system and lack of support from major nations, including the United States.

The blue-tinted glass and steel 38-story structure, whose original architects included France's Le Corbusier, has been increasingly showing its age.

It has water dripping through its roof, toxic asbestos lining its ceiling tiles, no sprinklers in case of fire, and erratic heating and cooling systems.

Planning to refurbish it originally began in 1995 but no work has started and the project is not expected to be completed until 2014. The current plan calls for a temporary structure to be erected on the U.N. lawn to accommodate staff.

The General Assembly approved the necessary funds, a considerable increase on earlier estimates, last December. Ban has said he wants the building, which consumes $30 million a year in energy costs, to be "a globally acclaimed model of efficient use of energy and resources."

In the 1980s, Adlerstein directed the restoration of New York's Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, where would-be immigrants to the United States once disembarked.

He also has worked as a U.S. State Department consultant on projects including the preservation of India's Taj Mahal. Most recently he has been architect for the New York Botanical Garden.