site
588 Broadway
(between Houston & Prince Streets)
New York, New York 10012

client
Common Ground Development Corporation

date
Summer 1986

program
A developer wanted an unusual experience for one of two lobbies in a large Soho building under renovation. Given control over the entire lobby, I developed a scheme which skews the spaces in a dynamic way, seeming to alter the interior as the viewer moves through it. A monumental rust-red wall framed in copper-oxide green 'emerges' from the terrazzo floor and looms upwards 18 feet towards a vaulted ceiling. The wall, which appears to be free-standing, is angled towards the entering visitor in an otherwise straight corridor: contrariwise, the exiting visitor sees the wall at right angles to the street and the lobby appears askew. A large ultramarine blue square 'hovers' at the end of the corridor past the elevators—a reflection in a mirror placed high above a bright yellow exit door adjacent to the elevators. The elevator cabs are designed to extend the scheme to the twelfth floor.

dimensions
20 ft (H) X 15 ft (W) X 45 ft (L)

status
Completed May 1987
[drastically altered under present owner]

execution
Construction by Silver Edge Construction
Plaster Work by Art-In-Construction
Painting by the artist

materials
Tinted plaster (fresco), tinted portland cement, terrazzo (floor), enameled steel (fire door), mirror, formica, and polished aluminum (elevator cabs).

notes
The guard's desk (shown in the slides above) was executed in extruded aluminum, threaded brass rods, rubber bushings, marble, and ground glass.

Photography by Kathy Kelly