Laura Gonzalez creates Printemps New York with "no boundaries" in art deco skyscraper

Designer Laura Gonzalez has overhauled two floors of retail space in New York City's historic One Wall Street skyscraper for the US flagship of French department store Printemps.

Printemps New York is located across two lower levels of the original 1931 limestone One Wall Street tower designed by architect Ralph Walker and is accessed through the Red Room on Wall Street, the former Bank of New York lobby intricately tiled in red and gold mosacics by Art Deco muralist Hildreth Meière.

The new department store is part of a recent, wider renovation of One Wall Street by developer Harry Macklowe of Macklowe Properties, which included one of the largest office-to-residential conversions in New York City, completed in 2023.

The building now contains 566 homes throughout its multi-tiered volumes, as well as a Whole Foods grocery store and Printemps New York on its ground level.

Printemps encompasses 55,000 square feet (5,109 square metres) of retail space, including multiple bars, a cafe and a fine dining restaurant and wine shop slated to open later this year as part of "redefining traditional concepts of retail" according to its CEO Jean-Marc Bellaiche.

For its design, French designer Gonzalez was informed by "the essence" of a Parisian apartment, where the store originated on Boulevard Haussmann 160 years ago, as well as its original art-nouveau elements.

It's broken into ten distinct shopping spaces, navigated via a snaking route that carries a visitor through one entrance, up to the second level, and back down into another section of the store.

Filled with an assortment of textures, materials, and sculptural installations, the various rooms are unified by Gonzalez's use of "all-upcycled" elements, according to the team, such as tabletops made of compressed recycled plastic and towering, white floral sculpture made of plant-based resin in the Red Room.

"Constraints bring creativity," said Gonzalez. "In the Red Room, we could not attach anything to the walls; they had to be completely protected, so we decided to make an entirely freestanding forest of flowers, made from ecological resin, which was developed especially for this project."

After entering the Red Room, visitors pass into the Red Room Bar, also outfitted in rich tones of red and gold. The store's fine-dining restaurant Maison Passerelle will be located next to this space, although accessed by a separate, dedicated entrance on Broadway.

A curved stairwell leads up to the boudoir and salle de bain areas, which are dedicated to haute couture and makeup, among other luxury items.

The boudair space is clad in metallic and ceramic panels, contrasted by a knobbly champagne bar counter by Brooklyn-based artist William Coggin, while the salle de bain features spa treatment rooms concealed by emoboried curtains and counters lined with Hollywood mirrors.

The store then passes into a low-ceilinged, curving corridor, further stocked with beauty items, before it passes into a perfume and scent area lined with green tiling.

The remaining second-storey space opens up into a menswear section punctuated with large, pink floral pendants and the main salon area, which contains sculptural floral displays and is lined with Versailles-patterned parquet wood flooring and colourful frescos.

A "Parisian-inspired raw bar in the Salon" sits at the end of the space, backed with hand-painted tiles of pink and green flowers.

An escalator leads downstairs into a "playful" homeware section, lined with geometric, textured shelving and marble flooring, and a cafe bar that sits tucked into one corner.

A "fully immersive" shoe ware room is also located in the same area, outfitted with an LED screen ceiling and column-like display cases, which showcase "long-awaited footwear drops".

According to Gonzalez, the store's historic New York location made it possible.

"We were very inspired by the heritage of Printemps – the mosaics, the stained glass, the patterns, the original art – but this is in New York," said Gonzalez.

"It's a city where everything is possible. I don't think this project could have been designed anywhere else because New York is very special. Here, there are no boundaries."

Dezeen recently examined the art deco movement across the world as part of Art Deco Centenary series and rounded up eight other residential skyscrapers in the surrounding Financial District of New York.

The photography is by Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York.

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