Isamu Noguchi at Lever House

On view from September 14, 2026–Summer 2027, this extensive public presentation explores Isamu Noguchi’s unrealized sculptural environment for the courtyard, plaza, and lobby of the Lever House building in New York City.

Isamu Noguchi at Lever House highlights the creative dialogue between Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) and architect Gordon Bunshaft (1909–1990), whose shared ambition to unite art and architecture would have found its earliest and most ambitious expression at Lever House.

Designed by Bunshaft and completed in 1952, Lever House transformed New York’s skyline as the city’s first commercial office tower with a glass-and-steel curtain wall. From the project’s inception, Bunshaft envisioned the building’s public courtyard to be more than an architectural forecourt—and turned to Noguchi to create an environment where sculpture and landscape could be inseparable.

Working closely with Bunshaft, Noguchi developed two extraordinary proposals for the courtyard inspired by the white sand gardens of Kyoto. Conceived as a total work of art, the first proposal featured a pristine marble plane surrounding a shallow reflecting pool from which emerged three biomorphic granite forms—abstracted figures representing a father, mother, and child. A second proposal expanded the concept into a richer landscape animated by water, vegetation, voids, and sculptural interventions, including an homage to Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column.

Although the commission was never realized, the Lever House project became a defining moment in Noguchi’s career and established a lasting creative relationship between him and Bunshaft. The proposal crystallized ideas that would occupy Noguchi for decades: sculpture as landscape, public space as a place for contemplation and play, and the integration of natural materials within modern architecture. Likewise, it reflected Bunshaft’s conviction that contemporary art should be conceived as an essential architectural element rather than an afterthought.

More than 70 years later, this presentation reunites Noguchi with Lever House, allowing visitors to reconsider this remarkable collaboration through related sculptures, models, drawings, and architectural ideas.

At the heart of the exhibition is Noguch’s Model for the Lever Brothers Building, presented within one of Lever House’s original lobby vitrines designed by Bunshaft, alongside a selection of architectural drawings related to the unrealized commission. These are presented alongside realized sculptures that reveal how ideas first explored for Lever House continued to evolve throughout Noguchi’s practice, including the marble Bird B (1958), directly inspired by the commission.

The exhibition also brings together important metal sculptures spanning Noguchi’s career, including Noh Musicians (1958) in painted aluminum and Mountains Forming (1982–83) in hot-dipped galvanized steel. Expanding beyond sculpture, Isamu Noguchi at Lever House highlights Noguchi’s multifaceted practice with the inclusion of Octetra (1965/2021) and Play Sculpture (c. 1965–80), artworks that function simultaneously as abstract sculpture and children’s play equipment.

A special presentation of Akari light sculptures will illuminate the front corner of the lobby, facing Park Avenue, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of Akari in 2026.

Isamu Noguchi at Lever House is presented in collaboration with BGRE, WatermanCLARK, and White Cube. It is organized by Jacob King, who oversees Lever House’s art program, and curated by Hitomi Iwasaki, Head Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, and Matthew Kirsch, Curator and Director of Research, of The Noguchi Museum.