Archinect - News

The Seagram Building after the Four Seasons: maintaining a costly landmark

2016-07-19T14:09:00-04:00

Mr. Rosen would not mind getting a little credit for maintaining the 59-year-old building, a landmark inside and outside, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. With its rich materials and exquisite detailing, the building demands scrupulous attention. And money. RFR executives estimated that it cost about 20 percent more to maintain the seemingly spartan Seagram Building than it would a typical office tower of roughly the same size and age. Less is more.

Iconic furniture, art, tableware and even a sausage grinder: hundreds of lots from Philip Johnson's Four Seasons head to auction

2016-07-13T13:33:00-04:00

If you've got a few thousand dollars lying around and want to grab a piece of lunchroom history, now's your chance.

Perfectly summed up by Vanity Fair as “Absolute ground zero for power lunching”, Philip Johnson and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's iconic Four Seasons restaurant will end its lease in Mies' Seagram building this summer. While the designation from the The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission protects the interior of the restaurant from any structural changes, the Four Seasons still has to unload an awful lot of bespoke furniture and tableware—everything from salt cellars to wine glasses to barstools and serving carts.

Over 800 pieces and sets from the Four Seasons kitchen and dining areas will be auctioned off on July 26 in New York. Rifling off just a few of the items and estimated values, there are: Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable flatware and serving carts ($1,000-1,500 for a set for 12, same estimate for 1 cart), Hans J. Wegner chairs ($2,000-3,000 for a set of t...

Modernist treasures from Philip Johnson's iconic Four Seasons Restaurant headed for auction

2016-06-15T15:48:00-04:00

Now that the iconic restaurant’s impending demise is only weeks away, its furniture, tableware, and custom-made Knoll furniture will be included in the 500 lots headed for auction next month on July 26. News had surfaced last summer when Seagram Building owner Aby Rosen did not renew the lease for the quintessential Midtown “power lunch” spot for the last decades of the 20th century since it opened in 1959.

Additional background on this news can be found here: Landmarked Four Seasons restaurant must not be changed, NYC landmarks commission rules

Landmarked Four Seasons restaurant must not be changed, NYC landmarks commission rules

2015-05-21T15:25:00-04:00

The interior of the Four Seasons restaurant, a vision of Modernist elegance with its French walnut paneling and white marble pool of bubbling water, should not be changed, New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission decided [...]. The decision was a setback to Aby J. Rosen, the owner of the Seagram Building, which is home to the restaurant. Mr. Rosen had proposed what he characterized as minor changes to the interior that was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson in 1958.

Phyllis Lambert — part of the group of architects passionately opposing Rosen's revamp plans and personally interwoven with the history of the Seagram Building like no one else — penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times last week: Save New York's Four Seasons.