It goes without saying that New York has some amazing architecture, but the Williamsburg Savings Bank in Brooklyn is probably among the lesser known, despite boasting an impressive 63ft vaulted ceiling in the main hall.
This was the venue for the Beaux Arts Ball – an annual event for The Architectural League of New York, and the setting for SOFTlab‘s installation Tender, a work especially commissioned for the occasion. The architects suspended a net filled with reflective pillow-like balloons between the ground and the mezzanine level, allowing the work to be viewed from above and below. Gaps between the pillows gave glimpses of the impressive floors and ceilings of the hall.
Pentagram’s Natasha Jen designed the time-stamped passes you can see hanging from the pillows; they gave access to a sound installation in the vault, themed around the stock market. SOFTlab were responsible for the seating – mesh sausages filled with the shredded paper of the trading floor – and finally, in a move I’m sure Gordon Gecko would have approved of, there were drinks served from the teller windows. In these troubled times, that’s part of the Ball they should keep.
Photo © Joan Cuenco for The Architectural League
Photo © Joan Cuenco for The Architectural League
Photo © Joan Cuenco for The Architectural League
Photography © Alan Tansey, unless otherwise stated.
