Designed by architect Kevin Roche and engineering partner John Dinkeloo in the late modernist style, the building was one of the first that Roche-Dinkeloo produced after they became heads of Eero Saarinen's firm.

The large public atrium inside, the first such space in an office building in Manhattan, was designed by landscape architect Dan Kiley and includes plants, shrubs, trees, and vines.

[13] In a 1988 book, Richard Berenholtz wrote that the building was, stylistically, "a thematic descendant of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Anglo-Chinois garden and of the Victorian conservatory".

[11] The design was intended to highlight the Ford Foundation Building as the eastern terminus of the succession of commercial structures along 42nd Street's northern sidewalk.

[17][20] Roche also wanted the building to be a main part of what author Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen called a "larger urban context".

[11][28] The design used reinforced concrete for simple masses and for structural supports, and it used steel for sections of the building that overhung other spaces.

The rest of the facade is composed of glass-walled offices between four narrow granite piers that divide the windows into three vertical bays.

[34][39] Kiley had projected that his garden would have "a Darwinian struggle of the fittest", with only some plants surviving the atrium's difficult climactic conditions.

[38] Several Dakota granite piers support a glass roof above the atrium, and the paths are made of red-brown brick pavers.

[36][46] Despite Roche's intentions for the atrium, the Ford Foundation did not install any benches (to prevent homeless people from sleeping there overnight), nor did it offer food concessions.

[18][35] The northern portions of the fourth through sixth stories are slightly set back behind the floors underneath them, creating three terraces that face the atrium.

[25][38] As originally designed, the eleventh floor had a 130-foot-long (40 m) balcony overhanging the atrium, which led to a reception room with mahogany panels on the walls that hid filing cabinets.

To meet fire-safety regulations, the eleventh floor of the atrium contains sprinklers, a fire curtain, and an exhaust system.

There are also emergency stairs within the diagonal piers on the eastern and southern sides of the building, at the ends of the northern and western wings respectively.

[52][53] In 1949, after a report by Horace Rowan Gaither, the foundation was reorganized to focus on economic improvements, education, freedom and democracy, human behavior, and world peace.

[17] However, the foundation's president at the time, Henry Townley Heald, had previously headed the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he had overseen the construction of a new campus.

[1] During the planning process, Roche created colorized diagrams of the site, which he presented to the Ford Foundation's leadership.

[27][45] Due to the design of the building's glass walls, it was difficult for window washers to clean the structure, as they could only access the facade from the ground.

[63] In 1975, during the ongoing recession, the Ford Foundation announced that it would lay off half its employees due to portfolio losses, and would consider renting out office space in the building.

Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, wanted as many of the elements of the original structure to be preserved as possible, though the presidential suite would be removed to create a less imposing environment.

[22][72][33] According to the New York Times, the Ford Foundation Building "established [Roche] firmly as a designer on his own", where previously his work had been associated mainly with Saarinen.

Paul Goldberger said the building's "very presence [...] benefits the entire city",[75] William Zinsser described it as "an act of faith in the midst of ruin",[76] and Ada Louise Huxtable called it a "civic gesture of beauty and excellence".

[77] Critic Jonathan Barnett described the building's cube-like form as "an ancient symbol of power" similar to that utilized in religious institutions.

The foundation's mission is to battle the full panoply of timeless injustices around the world, and its home base is a see-through fortress, braced for an endless war.

[5][14][80] A critic in the British magazine Country Life said that the atrium, one of the relatively few areas of greenery in Midtown Manhattan, probably inspired enthusiasm for the headquarters' opening.

[36][81] Another critic for Interiors magazine called the atrium "amazingly interesting to explore",[36][82] while Huxtable described it as "probably one of the most romantic environments ever devised by corporate man".

"[42][83] Some publications, such as the first edition of the AIA Guide to New York City and the Interiors magazine, characterized the atrium as being practical, in the sense that it provided fresh air to the offices.

"[33] A Times reporter stated that the design prior to the renovation had been "a Mad Men-era version of a Gesamtkunstwerk, a complete work of art".

[22] After Roche's death the following year, Goldberger said in the Times that the building's design "united his favorite forms and materials—large amounts of glass, emphatic masonry and dark Cor-ten steel—with the elegance of [Kiley's] interior garden".

In 1968, the Ford Foundation Building and Paley Park shared an Albert S. Bard Civic Award, distributed to structures that exhibited "excellence in architecture and urban design".