Contract - January/February 2016 - 96

INTERIORS AWARDS

Hotel
Ian Schrager Company and Rockwell Group

The New York Edition

By David Sokol
Photography by
Nikolas Koening

Client
Marriott International
Location
New York
96

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower has been a
beloved feature of the New York skyline since it was the world's
tallest building for four years following its 1909 opening. Modeled after
the Venice Campanile by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, the 41-story
tower is on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated
a National Historic Landmark.
But icon status has only partially spared the Met Life Tower:
A series of renovations beginning in the early 1960s wiped most
of its interiors clean of the original design elements. When Marriott
International purchased the building and teamed with Ian Schrager
Company to develop the 273-room New York Edition hotel, the
former office interior was almost a blank slate. Working in concert
with Schrager, New York-based Rockwell Group was selected
to transform that canvas into a series of restrained-yet-sumptuous
public and private spaces that meditate on the boundary
between old and new. Adamson Associates Architects served
as the architect of record.
The New York Edition is the fourth property in a new brand
of boutique hotels that Marriott is rolling out in partnership with
Schrager, who invented the boutique concept with Steve Rubell
in 1984. Having individual properties designed site specifically
has allowed the Edition initiative to successfully meld Schrager's
personality with Marriott's global scale. To create an authentic
solution for the New York Edition, Rockwell Group had to strike
its own balance between history and modernity. "We certainly
didn't want to recreate the past, but we did want guests to have
touchpoints that speak to the building's heritage," Rockwell
Partner Shawn Sullivan says.
Guests immediately comprehend that this is not the Met Life
Tower of yore as they enter the New York Edition to find a new datum:
The lobby's check-in, bar, and seating areas form a perimeter perched
five steps above the foyer and elevator landing. The elevation change
works in concert with a dropped ceiling to give the impression that
the 3,100-square-foot room was slipped into the original cavernous
space. The alcove reception desk and 30-foot-long inset fireplace

underscore the entire ground floor as a sleek, low-slung departure
from LeBrun's Gothic Revival.
Sullivan explains that the project team "obsessed over a refined
set of finishes" to arrive at a lobby interior that also honors precedent.
Artisanship provides one link to the past. For example, the reception
desk is a custom walnut fabrication and the fireplace was hand-forged
in blackened steel. Rubbed plaster and concrete tiles are matched
to the color of the exterior limestone. "Getting the most beauty
out of a narrow palette is a very modern approach," Sullivan says.
That strategy roars to life one floor above. Here, Met Life's
executive offices largely escaped demolition and have been
transformed into the 90-seat Clocktower restaurant, where verticality
and maximalism come to the fore. Accessible by an otherworldly
metal-helix stair with oak treads, the restaurant is a composition
of painstakingly restored wainscoting, mahogany doors, and other
landmarked elements complemented by a new gold-leaf bar, pendant
lighting by Eric Schmitt, and hundreds of photographs hung
salon-style. "They're not modern for modern's sake," Sullivan says
of these interventions, likening them to cues for "remembering
New York in different ways."
Guestrooms and suites, meanwhile, represent a middle
ground in their own right, as the simplified-yet-substantial millwork
and spare furnishings coincide with the lobby's abstract atmosphere.
The vaulted ceilings above some guestrooms embody the jubilant
preservation spirit of the tower.
"It was fascinating for a company like Marriott to embrace
somebody as radically different as Schrager and tear up the
playbook," Sullivan says. Rockwell will participate in rewriting
the proverbial hospitality playbook as the partnership has invited
the firm to collaborate on future Edition hotels with Schrager. c

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Contract - January/February 2016

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