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The value of the Lever House as a Modern icon on New York's Park Avenue was recognized when the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a landmark in 1983, even though the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill design was only 31 years old (hardly an antique). Appropriately, by its 50th anniversary in 2002, the building was nearing complete restoration and rehabilitation [RECORD, March 2003, page 122], but bringing it back to life required more than new lobby furniture and curtain wall. A critical issue for lease-holder RFR was to animate the ground-floor space formerly occupied by a conference room and Lever Brothers company store.
Program
Enter New York restaurateurs John McDonald and Josh Pickard, who opened the Lever House Restaurant in August. The available 6,500-square-foot space is actually subterranean and windowless but accessible directly from 53rd Street on the south side of the building. The frontage available for establishing the restaurant's identity is minimal, and landmark laws prevent excessive signage on the building. Then designer Marc Newson came on board, an Australian (living in Paris) with a reputation for things curvilinear--bikes, chairs, airplane interiors, the "stuff that surrounds you"--with a retro Modern aesthetic that Wallpaper magazine has made so fashionable.
Solution
In less than three years, Newson concocted a pod of hexagons and curved surfaces that is both retro (fitting for a 1950s mothership) and very now. Working with in-house consulting architect Sbastien Segers, he created windows in the windowless space by lining one...