BUILDING RELATIONSHIP
It is no coincidence that the building bears a remarkable resemblance to another, more famous house of diplomacy. While the architecture of the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York (1952) has often been attributed to Niemeyer and Le Corbusier, two of the giants behind its design, it was actually Harrison that was placed in charge of the international collaboration. Like the embassy in Havana, the Secretariat has an oblong, rectangular footprint aligned along a north-south axis. Windows cover the east and west facades; while solid, light-colored panels cover the north, south, and uppermost profiles. The result is the form of a capital pi (Π), heavily outlined and infilled with glass, a scheme that has since been redeployed in projects around the world. Although the UN prototype was primarily the brainchild of Niemeyer—who used the scheme to great success five years later in Brasilia—its success as a model was undoubtedly appreciated and borrowed by Harrison in Havana.