Bonhams Comes to Billionaires' Row

"If you want to sell Basquiats and Birkins to the very rich, it might help to have a location on Billionaires' Row. It might also help if that location had a certain cultural cachet. Bonhams, the international auction house, managed to find such a spread in a 42,000-square-foot space that is knitted from the lower floors of an odd collection of prewar buildings and razed lots, with pops of old brick walls and limestone interrupting expanses of sheer, contemporary glass."

"The showroom at the new, main entrance on 57th Street, feels like any contemporary art museum with money to burn: The floors are pale, the ceilings soar, and a full wall of windows makes it easy to spot a bubblegum-pink Alex Katz from the crosstown bus. But pass through a set of brassy doors cut into a stone wall, and visitors enter a gallery so dark and hushed that it can take a moment to adjust."

"This is the reception rotunda for Steinway Hall, a landmarked interior, where generations of pianists came to worship their instrument, talk craft, perform, and play. The marbled, frescoed, octagonal room was domed to amplify the sound of a tinkling keys at the center, and hosted regular recitals. Rachmaninoff opened the building with a concert. A lost Chopin waltz debuted here. Billy Joel came by."

Bonhams occupies a 42,000-square-foot space on Billionaires' Row stitched together from lower floors of prewar buildings and cleared lots, blending exposed brick and limestone with broad contemporary glass. The 57th Street showroom reads like a high-end contemporary art museum with pale floors, soaring ceilings and a full window wall. Behind brassy doors lies the landmarked Steinway Hall reception rotunda: a marbled, frescoed, octagonal, domed room designed to amplify piano sound and host recitals. Historic performers and events include Rachmaninoff, a lost Chopin waltz, Billy Joel and Leonard Bernstein. Steinway & Sons built an ornate 1925 headquarters with a wood-paneled concert hall and delivery bays on 58th Street.

Read at Curbed