Hotels are no longer just places to lay one’s head. Like most hospitality spaces these days, they’ve become multifunctional environments comprising an ever-expanding set of services. Catering to different types of clientele—travelers taking in all that a locale has to offer; frequent businesspeople requiring the essentials and replicated creature comforts in equal measure; locals simply looking for a new third place to relax or have a drink—these destinations now incorporate extensive food and beverage options, expansive coworking set-ups, fitness centers, playrooms, and increasingly, lobby ‘living rooms.’ These, in and of themselves multifunctional venues, are increasingly programmed as porous buffers, softening the transition between the street outside and the accommodations on the floors above.
In a growing push to make do with what’s already in place (adaptive reuse), long-established hotels like Lower Manhattan’s Hyatt Union Square are being retooled along these lines. Multicity interiors firm LEGEARD STUDIO recently revamped its palatial, Fourth Avenue–facing lobby and transformed it into a public-facing neighborhood salon. Answering all the requirements of such an environment—an easily identifiable reception desk, an ample variety of seating areas, etc.—the retrofit marries past and present, rooting the space in the history of the site while also foretelling its future.
Nearby Union Square is, for many New Yorkers, a central axis for the city, straddling the edge of downtown and uptown. Its cultural history is nothing to scoff at, either. Andy Warhol maintained his Factory here. The storied Parsons School of Design is nearby. When not home to a twice-weekly farmers’ market (a holiday village during the season), its circuitous plaza is the site of major public gatherings. New York’s extensive array of diversely defined yet ever-evolving districts unfolds from here in all directions.
Enacting a complete gut renovation of the two-story interior, the firm reintroduced elements that were familiar and others that were new. Hints of Palm Springs Tropical Modernism intermix with nods to the restrained yet warm Milanese style of the same mid-20th-century period. A bespoke amoebic-form patterned tile floor lays the groundwork for a number of partially contained alcoves, breaking what would otherwise be an overly imposing and monotonous singular void. The time of shocking and awing visitors and guests into submission has passed.
Still, the richly veined wooden reception desk takes pride of place. A stained glass wall, geometrically composed like the floor, accentuates its importance but also suggests what else is yet to be uncovered. The Bauhaus-inspired backdrop takes in and refracts natural and indirect artificial light in unexpected ways. Up ahead hang paper lanterns reminiscent of the Akari lamps imagined by Isamu Noguchi—a for-too-long unsung, polymathic creative hero of New York City.
The adjoining guest lounge takes on more intimate proportions. Wrapped in wood-paneled walls, the space is defined by 1970s low-slung sofa pits. Playful rugs and polished vintage accents layer in. Verdant greenery, encased in elevated linear planters, carries across the entire lobby space.
The cocktail lounge toward the rear is anchored by soaring columns encased in diamond-patterned woodwork. Murano glass–inspired sconces are subtle touches tying everything together. Both banquettes emerge with iconic Sergio Mazza Alfa lamps as focal points. The main bar features a Charlotte Perriand–inspired bottle shelf and a large slab of Verde Antigua marble. A ripple-pattern plaster relief extends across the adjoining wall. Glistening with its large Venetian chandelier by day, the bright cocktail lounge turns into a sultry, dimly lit haunt by night.
With all of this expertly cohered, the lobby is both nostalgic—romantically dramatic, like the legendary Palladium nightclub that once stood around the corner—and contemporary in its human-scale accommodation.
To see this and other works by the firm, visit legeardstudio.com.
Photography courtesy of Legeard Studio.
