Downtown's first exemplar of the International Style contrasts dramatically with the sturdy brick and stone of its neighbors. Its 1960s architecture is stripped of historical references and ornament, and its grid of glass and aluminum mirror sunlight down to street level. The sixty stories are carried on twenty columns that, at great expense, were expressed on the exterior as long verticals, faced in white anodized aluminum. At the base, the columns are stilt-like supports for the double-height entry lobby, enclosed in broad expanses of clear glass.

As innovative as the architecture of the tower is the plaza in which it sits. The Chase Manhattan Bank headquarters, called "1 CMP," Lever House, and the Seagram Building, created a new paradigm. These towers occupied only a portion of their building plot (in the case of Chase, thirty percent); the rest was a "public" plaza, maintained by the owners. This "tower-in-the-plaza" was encouraged in the 1961 Zoning Law, which allowed developers to trade a bonus of two square feet of extra floor space for every square foot of plaza.

One Chase Manhattan Plaza occupies a full-block site for which the street pattern was changed. The tower and plaza rest on a plinth elevated above the street. Below plaza level is the flagship branch of Chase Manhattan Bank. This sleek modern room is lit with natural light from a glass-enclosed sunken garden cut out of the plaza above. The garden, by Isamu Noguchi, synthesizes elements of the traditional Japanese Rock Garden with a 1960's corporate aesthetic. Jean Dubuffet created the large sculpture, Group of Four Trees, in 1972.