The Capital Master Plan to Renovate the UN Headquarters NANCY SCHULTZ& VOLKER LEHMANN October 2008 Summary Ever since the United Nations(UN) headquarters in New York City was completed in 1950, these structures have been a symbol of multilateralism, human rights, economic and social development and world peace. While the UN as an organization has shaped world politics and global policies, the headquarters’ structures have aged to an extend that endanger the functioning of the UN as a multilateral body. To overhaul its headquarters, UN member states adopted the so-called Capital Master Plan(CMP). The CMP initially set the costs for a complete renovation of the building at$1.9 billion. Since 2006, however, the CMP has been changed several times, and anticipated costs have risen to$2.1 billion. For the UN as an organization that regularly struggles to raise the resources of its annual budget of currently about$4.2 billion, raising such large extra sums poses a critical political challenge. The politics around the CMP are hence a reflection of the state in which the UN currently fares. History After the adoption of the UN Charter in San Francisco in June 1945 a permanent UN Headquarters in New York was made possible thanks to the Rockefeller family, which purchased 17 acres of land for$8.5 million and donated it to the UN. Under the American director of planning Wallace Harrison, a multinational team of architects from UN member states was commissioned to design the UN building. The final design was based on the proposals by Le Corbusier (France/Switzerland), and Oscar Niemeyer(Brazil). The original assemblage of buildings- the 39-storied secretariat tower, the domed General Assembly(GA) Hall, and the conference building- was built in 1949 and 1950 and cost$65 million. In 1961, a fourth building, the library in honor of the late Secretary­General Dag Hammarskjöld was added. While the UN building initially had to host representatives of only 50 member states, this number has risen to currently 192. Moreover, as the world body’s programmatic activities have expanded, over time the number of UN Secretariat staff that works at headquarters has doubled to an unprecedented 4.700. There are also about 1 million visitors per year coming to the UN and the architecture barely kept pace with the increase of utilization. Small alterations are carried to maintain the functioning of the building on an ad-hoc basis. The UN spends approximately$19 million a year on maintenance, plus almost$6 million on maintenance staff. Nonetheless, the building does not fulfill the most basic contemporary safety requirements such as a sprinkler system to prevent a fire hazard. One Plan, Three Approaches Starting in 1998, the General Assembly debated a complete restoration of the UN Headquarters and a first CMP was proposed by the GA in 2003. Each of the main buildings of the headquarters structures was supposed to be renovated in one single phase and UN staff would have had been relocated off site all at once. The plan also involved building a new Secretariat tower to accommodate staff members during the renovation. However, in 2006 this plan had to be abandoned after the New York State legislature withdrew its loan guarantee for the land south of the headquarters complex where the temporary building was supposed to be built. In June 2006 the CMP therefore changed its approach. Renovation was planned to be carried out in multiple phases during which only part of the staff would have to be moved offsite while the rest would move within the secretariat building.