Álvaro Siza specifically designed a bench for the lobby of his first skyscraper on the island of Manhattan. Aptly named Hell’s Kitchen Bench, due to the building’s close proximity to this iconic area of the city, this original piece enters into a consummate dialogue with the sleek and refined lines of the tower. It is a striking piece of furniture, measuring almost 5 metres in length, revealing in its design the poetic modernism that is so characteristic of this architect’s work. This piece also presents another material in combination with the stone: wood, creating a symbiotic relationship between these two natural and sustainable raw materials, evidenced by the lines of the bench itself, as well as in the contrast between the pure white of the Branco Vigária marble and the dark tone of the Sapele wood. This bench is permanently installed in the lobby of the tower and accessible to the general public.

Hell’s Kitchen Bench, by Álvaro Siza

I chose the name for this bench in marble and mahogany, which will be placed in the elevator lobby of the building I designed in Manhattan: Hell’s Kitchen Bench, in the hope that the experience of sitting on it is in no way a hellish one.