This building’s superb design, innovative technology, and production as a collaborative effort are all qualities for which the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was already famous: design partner Gordon Bunshaft guided the firm’s New York office, and Natalie de Blois, among the very few women architects at that time, was the senior designer for the project. Throughout its existence, the building has been praised by architectural critics for its clever siting and gemlike treatment, and especially for its sophisticated curtain wall, a nearly smooth skin of gray-green glass and aluminum spandrels.