Lever House at 390 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan was designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for Lever Brothers, a Unilever subsidiary. Construction began in 1950, and it opened on April 29, 1952. The article calls it International Style and the second curtain-wall building in New York, after the UN Secretariat.
A slab about 53 feet (16 m) wide rises 307 feet (94 m), with a heat-absorbing glass and stainless steel curtain wall of 1,404 fixed panes. Stainless-clad columns lift the second story over a plaza, a privately owned public space. Raymond Loewy Associates designed the interiors.
SOM restored the deteriorated curtain wall in 2000 and 2001, replacing most spandrels. Another renovation in 2022 and 2023 added the Lever Club and a new Casa Lever entrance. It is now a multi-tenant office building.
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