New York, April 26, 2023. The spectacular party, where we will meet Pharrell Williams, Florence Pugh, Zico and Katy Perry – is scheduled for the next day. But in the early morning (it’s not yet 8 a.m.), at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 57th Street, one block from Central Park, photographers and cameramen are already waiting in front of the building occupied by the jeweler. Tiffany for over eighty years. An entire building, which we would have called, twenty years ago, flagshipthese multi-storey flagships that the big names in luxury made climb in the sky of Tokyo, Los Angeles, Shanghai…
Unprecedented experiences over 10,000m2
Twenty years later, Tiffany created a new substantive in the middle nomenclature: landmark. And even : The Landmark Building, to better understand that there cannot be one. But a what? For New York City, these are buildings of historic character, which deserve to be preserved – think for example of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center. And now, for what looks like a Tiffany palace, whose the ribbon is cut, under the flashes, by the actress Gal Gadot. Four years of construction, no less, will have been necessary to give substance to what Alexandre Arnault, executive director of the American house, describes as “a new, unprecedented experience, where the products, the heritage, the art , catering and the world of the home are intertwined in this temple of 10,000 square meters, on ten floors, between sales and exhibition spaces, VIP lounges… It’s quite unheard of: it’s the only space where you will be able to experiment all the universes of Tiffany. We should note in passing that this is the largest space of this type in the world… And that the famous Tiffany Diamond, remounted for the occasion on a new necklace, sits majestically in one of the windows overlooking Fifth Avenue.
Neil Rasmus/BFA.com
Timelessly contemporary architecture
From the outside, nothing has changed. “The facade itself is a signature,” explains the young manager about this large building clad in limestone and granite, which is in the top 10 most visited places in the Big Apple. Generations of New Yorkers, both residents and visitors, have passed under the sculptural clock carried by the figure of Atlas, New York’s oldest, who has followed Tiffany since her installation in 1853 on Broadway and adorned , until then, the “Tiffany Building”, a Venetian-inspired palazzo located about twenty blocks further south. Looking “modern, but not extreme” (according to the official documents filed at the end of the 1930s), the new address, then entrusted to the architects Cross & Cross, is the subject of all attention. As reflected in the New York Timeswe then admired its ground floor in one piece, without columns or pilasters, its interior lighting, its air conditioning system and its windows – later made famous by the creations of Gene Moore, its seven elevators , its private rooms…
A work by Daniel Arsham, at the foot of the monumental staircase.
The floor reserved for tableware and decoration was entrusted to Lauren Santo Domingo.
“The rich didn’t go below 57th anymore,” Judy Price, president of the National Jewelery Institute, told me. Audrey Hepburn, in a black dress and pearl necklaces, eating a croissant in front of the windows at daybreak in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), taken from the eponymous novel by Truman Capote, ensured unexpected promotion at this address which, for the American specialist, “represents the very idea of luxury for America. Dn a country where everything goes fast, there is something stable, reassuring, democratic : You can buy diamonds there like writing paper. And rings, of course. Tiffany is the fireplace on which all American brides come to warm their hands, ”smiles the one who herself organized… breakfasts at Tiffany, around three TV screens replaying the scene on a loop and furniture sourced by Steve Greenberg, impresario of the night and passionate about the cabinetmaker Rhulmann. And it’s not the elegant Lauren Santo Domingo, now mistress of the sixth floor dedicated to the art of living, who will say the opposite: “From the silver spoon that I received at my birth to my first communion, through my sweet sixteen, my 21st birthday, graduating from high school and college, and finally our wedding rings… passing through Tiffany’s is where important moments are recognized in my family. »
2023-04-28 07:00:00
#York #spectacular #reopening #Tiffany #Landmark #Building
