Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations

On September 8, 1994 the mission signed the contract for the design and construction supervision of its new building with I. M. Pei, then aged 77. The scheme at that point called for seven or eight storeys on a site of 271 pyeong (the Korean unit of area), with a budget of 23 million dollars including the land. Pei explained what had drawn him: the building, though modest, would stand right in front of the United Nations headquarters and be judged by the whole world, and he would put into it the soul of Korea, a country that also belongs to the Confucian cultural sphere. In more than fifty years of practice, he said, most of his work had been done for his firm, and few buildings had been taken on because he wanted to: this was one of them.

The first scheme, an eight-storey building of 1,400 pyeong replacing an old four-storey building, was revised: given the United Nations' growing role in multilateral diplomacy, and looking ahead to a reunified Korea, the mission judged that owning its own building served the national interest in the long run, and raised the project to eleven storeys. The groundbreaking took place on February 10, 1997, attended by the ambassador, the builder Humphreys & Harding and Pei, in charge of design and supervision. The works, estimated at 18 million dollars, were due to finish at the end of 1998; the building was completed in 1999.

The building has one basement level and eleven storeys above ground, with a total floor area of 2,170 pyeong. Its asymmetrical façade is pierced by square and rectangular windows of varied formats and carries a diamond-shaped ornament at the top.