After the intense three-year structural restoration work, we started the design phase, which took almost one more year. This stage included the restoring of the main rotunda ceiling art work, the redesigning of two main ceilings in the main hall: the vestibule and the balcony, and the historic wallpaper design and installation in the entire building interior, including corridors, bathrooms, rooms, stairwell and several ceilings.
We decided that each different room –such as the vault, the president’s room, the trustee’s room, among others– would each have a different design style, but all live together with an aesthetical and historical logic. In contrast, all the corridors would have a neutral design in terms of form and color, so that when entering the rooms people would really get their impact individually.
The interesting aspect of this decision was that designing the “neutral” corridor wasn’t necessarily a simpler task, but probably one of the most challenging ones, as we worked on a willow tree leaves pattern, very much related to the Aesthetic Period. Designing an “irregular” pattern and actually making it happen is way more difficult than working with a symmetric one. So as simple or neutral as we see it now, its art work was very demanding. The sunflower friezes and the molding color palettes were also a big part of this process.
On this image we can regard the “before & after” comparison to have a sense of the mission we committed to accomplish! We believe we achieved an elegant entrance to a unique and historical walk through the architecture of the late 19th century’s Brooklyn.
Wallpaper design: Bradbury & Bradbury
Installation: Holly Fisher
Direction: Federico Rozo