UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS

Evening Star, Issue 25994, 8 January 1947, Page 5

UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS

NEW PERMANENT BUILDING EARLY CONSIDERATION OF PLANS (Rec. 8 a.m.) NEW YORK, January 7. The United Nations Headquarters Advisory Committee’s first meeting unanimously appointed Mr Wallace K. Harrison planning director for the new permanent-headquarters op the Manhattan site. Mr Harrison will be assisted by a board of consulting architects and engineers from various countries, and they will be appointed later. The committee directed Mr Harrison to submit general plans and requirements to the United Nations SecretaryGeneral, M. Trygve Lie, by July 1, so that the General Assembly may consider them in September. NO GAUDY ATMOSPHERE. M. Trygve Lie asserted before he left Norway his firm conviction that the. United Nations had important work to do, and he was insistent that this should be done in a plain, austere atmosphere. His attitude toward the trappings with which many wished to adorn the U.N.O.’s new home reflects his affection for plain people and plain speaking. “ I don’t want the U.N.O. to have too much or ask, for too much,” he said shortly before he left for America. “ No palaces and extensive and expensive grounds are wanted, but just plain Government buildings, the kind that American officials would want if they were abroad. We are not coming to the United States as anything hut plain people. We are not coming as rulers or anything like that. We are plain people working for plain people all over the world, and we hope that this will be understood in the United States. I hope we can show we are working in the interests of all common men and women everywhere, and working without the old diplomatic tricks.”