05 May 2016
Legendary Four Seasons Restaurant set to leave Manhattan home of 56 years, furniture to be auctioned
BY Kim Megson
New York’s The Four Seasons restaurant, which on Monday was awarded the Design Icon Award at the James Beard Foundation Awards, will soon close its doors ahead of a move to a new location.
The restaurant’s operators have been unable to negotiate an extension to their current lease, and have chosen to leave their home of over 50 years inside Mies van der Rohe’s landmark Seagram building in Manhattan.
The restaurant will close its doors on 16 July 2016, with auction house Wright then stepping in to hold a special sale on July 26 in the restaurant. They will sell around 500 lots, including custom-made Knoll furniture, designed tableware and cookware and other objects from the iconic interiors, which were designed by architect Philip Johnson in 1959.
In a statement, Wright said: “The Four Seasons has become one of the most important and recognisable international style interior spaces in the world.
“While the interior space is landmarked – the famous bar, sculpture and curtains will all remain intact once the restaurant closes – the designed furniture, tableware and objects will be offered at auction in the extraordinary one day event.”
While details of the restaurant’s new home have yet to be revealed, Bloomberg reported The Four Seasons will be without a home for about a year, before re-opening in a building close to its original home.
According to the publication, co-owner Alex von Bidder said: “What we’re hoping is that absence makes the heart grow fonder. If you don’t have us, maybe you’ll miss us and you’ll come see us.”
The Four Seasons is famous for its luxurious and modern trappings and its popularity among celebrities and power brokers. Over the years it has exhibited rotating galleries of modern art, including a Picasso stage curtain from a 1919 French production of the ballet Le Tricorne, and works by Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock and Joán Miró.
Architect James Biber, chair of the James Beard Foundation Restaurant Design Awards Committee, said: “In introducing generations of diners to modern elegance and luxury, The Four Seasons forever changed restaurant design, even as it remained virtually unchanged itself.”
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