Goethe-Institut, New York

The institute has its beginning in the Goethe Etage, an office building at 120 East 56th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, to provide enough space for its books, small exhibitions, and lectures.

John J. McCloy, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, had presented the plan for the establishment of such a cultural center to Chancellor of Germany Konrad Adenauer three years earlier.

[2] Acquired from the estate of James W. Gerard, pre-World War I American Ambassador to Imperial Germany, the mansion becomes the home of Goethe House for over fifty years.

Following an international design competition in 2021, the German government appointed David Chipperfield Architects to convert the building into a new centre for transatlantic dialogue, at a cost of around 20 million euros.

[3] Designed by artists Ethan Breckenridge and Liam Gillick, Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 was founded as a space in 2008[4] for experiments within contemporary art.