Nicole Farhi
New York City
Gabellini Associates

A Former Nightclub Transformed Into a Retail Landscape.

By William Weathersby, Jr.

© Paul Warchol

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

When establishing a retail store in New York City, the London-based designer Nicole Farhi wanted a clean-lined, finely detailed architectural backdrop. Besides areas displaying men’s and women’s apparel, the program required discrete spaces to house a 130-seat restaurant and a home-furnishings line. To carve a new modern setting within a historic building that had been shuttered for a decade, Farhi collaborated with Gabellini Associates, an architectural firm that has designed retail stores for high-profile clients including Jil Sander and Giorgio Armani.

The Farhi flagship occupies the lower two levels of a Beaux-Art-style structure built as a hotel in 1903. A new sense of openness is provided by two double-height atria at the front and rear of the plan. The atria flank a 3,500-square-foot main retail space that appears to be suspended within the volume. Entering from the street, customers walk across a walnut-clad bridge that spans the 26-foot-high front atrium to connect with the main sales floor featuring women’s apparel. Access to the women’s fitting area is provided by a second bridge spanning the rear atrium, which houses home furnishings below. Men’s apparel is showcased at the rear of the lower level. Walnut staircases at either end connect the two floors.

On the main level, a bluestone floor bordered in walnut articulates the floating plane and echoes the tint of the restaurant’s plaster ceiling. Display racks suspended from the ceiling and cantilevered shelving heighten the sense of lightness. The women’s fitting rooms, veiled by walnut and rice-paper shoji screens, are a luminous backdrop. Ambient neon lighting crisply outlines the edges of the architectural envelope.

See the January 2001 issue of Architectural Record for addition coverage.

Formal name of building:
Nicole Farhi (boutique)
Nicole's (restaurant bar)

Location:
New York City

Gross square footage:
20,000 sq ft

Architect's firm:
Gabellini Associates
665 Broadway Floor 7
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212. 388.1700
Fax: 212.388.1808
email@gabelliniassociates.com
www.gabelliniassociates.com