This 8,000 square foot residence occupies an entire floor of a hotel building facing Central Park, and was designed for a businessman and noted art collector. Celeste Umpierre served as the project architect while at Gwathmey Siegel Architects. The clients required a home that could accommodate and elevate a significant collection of modern and contemporary art, while also providing generous living spaces with expansive views of the park.
The design creates a spacious gallery ambience despite existing ceiling heights of under eight feet four inches. Rooms were interconnected to form sweeping visual corridors, and ceiling modulations were introduced to give hierarchy and emphasis to the art displayed throughout the home. An axial viewing strategy was developed in section, using interior clerestories, low windows, and vertical openings to create long, layered views across multiple spaces and outward to Central Park.
In plan, the apartment functions as a carefully composed collage. A figure and ground strategy was used to carve spaces around the irregular matrix of columns and plumbing lines inherited from the original structure. Select cast iron columns were exposed to enhance the character of the interiors. Interconnected former hotel rooms create a generous U shaped footprint that opens to both north facing views of the park and a south facing courtyard filled with natural light. The result is a residence that operates as both a home and an immersive environment for art, transforming existing constraints into opportunities for spatial richness and clarity.
