Architect Annabelle Selldorf gave a contemporary overhaul to a Fifth Avenue apartment.
Live in New York long enough and life without the light will become unimaginable. A light so close to the sea that it captures the mood of the ocean. A light that is most spectacular on the east side of Central Park, where the afternoon sun literally bathes the palaces on Fifth Avenue in gold. Here, on the so-called “Gold Coast,” is where Annabelle Selldorf was commissioned to carefully redesign the apartment of a married couple of art collectors.
The architect has made a name for herself in the US with interiors that counterbalance American extravagance with European minimalism. In the entrance hall, the marble floors and mahogany doors installed by New York interior designers Stephen Sills and James Huniford in the 90s were left untouched, while the teak parquet in the other rooms was lightened by staining it white.
In order to accentuate the couple’s collection of modern art - from Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miro and Fernand Leger to Richard Serra, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and Ellsworth Kelly - the colors of the walls and ceilings were changed. For this, Selldorf cooperated with color expert Donald Kaufman. His work is based on using a multitude of pigments, often between six and thirteen. “This helps the paint react better to the incidence of light,” the architect explains. For example, the white in the living room contains a touch of magenta mixed with red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. A good example of the effect this creates can be seen in the dining room, where gray walls have a purple tone at day-light, while artificial light creates a rosier hue in the evening.
Other interior designers would have seen the project as an opportunity to get rid of every piece of furniture, yet Selldorf only replaced the designer pieces. Tailor-made furniture from her Vica collection, adapted to blend in with the impressive dimensions of the apartment, now features alongside 18th-century chairs in the living room. “Minimalists remove things, I tweak the details,” she says.
Text: Doris Chevron, Photographs: Nikolas Koenig.
