A Flurry of Contemporary Art & Design: 1890s Tribeca Penthouse Reimagined by Crina Arghirescu Rogard.

Six weeks isn’t a long time. Or I suppose it is for some things. It’s a long time to wait for new shoes in the mail or to be apart from a lover. It’s actually far too long to leave leftovers in the fridge. What it is not is a long time to transform a home, yet this is exactly the challenge proposed to architect and designer Crina Arghirescu Rogard by her good friend Claudia Doring Baez.

Why the deadline? Well, Claudia is known for her fabulous parties, and she had one upcoming to celebrate her participation in the latest Frieze New York. The Mexican-born artist, who’s lived in New York for so long she’s become a native, looked to re-envision her historic Tribeca home of 22 years for the occasion.

Located on the top floor of the American Thread Building, the apartment’s grand living room has quite a past. Designed and built in the 1890s in the Renaissance Revival style, the space was once home to the historical ballroom of “The Wool Club” a gentleman’s club for the fabric industry. Thankfully, many of the apartment’s historical architectural details remain, including a stained glass skylight; Greek Revival columns and moulding; a mosaic floor in the entrance hall and intricate black walnut wall panelling and ceiling mouldings in the living room.

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Although grand, the home was comfortable when Claudia moved in, and interior decorating wasn’t at the top of her priority list. With Crina now onboard, the primary challenge became establishing a dialogue between the old and new to marry the strong historical architectural shell with a new contemporary interior.

In contrast to Bret Easton Ellis, who would remove all his furniture before his infamous New Year’s Eve parties, Crina curated and designed an avant-garde collection of contemporary pieces that fill the space. The ‘Conversation’ chairs, for example, in the dining room, developed with Brooklyn artist Liz Collins and Harry Allen, are connected with thick powder blue threads that continue to weave into each piece. “We imagined the chairs as a dialogue on many levels—between designers, between disciplines, and eventually between anyone who uses the chairs. Its woven fabric is an ode to the building’s history as a textile exchange centre,” Crina elaborates.

A diptyque by artist Rose Wylie, ‘Dot and Detail’, takes command of the living room, the playful and loose style offering shades of Jean-Michel Basquiat but lighter. Crina worked with Liz Hopkins on a custom dining room table—its blue-grey tint echoing Rose’s piece—and a stackable coffee table in primary-yellow resin. Other standout pieces are a lucite and bronze writing desk designed by Hélène de Saint Lager in the bedroom and a delightfully bulbous ‘Lympho Contemporary’ chair by Taras Zheltyshev.

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All that was new was informed by Claudia’s own extensive collection of art and objects. Artworks by Roy Oxlade, Pablo Picasso, Robert Motherwell, and Colt Hausman sit alongside antique pieces and everyday objects. Her work, as well as paintings, photographs and sculptures by her mother Lucero Gonzales, her brother Adolfo Doring and her daughter Alexandra Zelman, cover the walls of the kitchen and hallways. The effect is one of ordered chaos, a dis-order that feels perfectly at home in an artist’s loft.

In the bedroom sits a custom asymmetric headboard in lush dark green velvet matched with a yellow raku and bronze coffee table of Crina’s own design, she explains: “The random veining of the Raku top brings with it a delicate and poetic note, resting on a robust, more monolithic, metal pedestal base that creates the visual sensation of a stand-alone sculpture.” These pieces anchor the space with walls now covered foot to ceiling with her and her mother’s paintings.

In only six weeks, Crina has layered this Tribeca home with art, objects and paintings in complementary opposition to its historic backdrop— reflecting a life well lived in New York and beyond.

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[Images courtesy of Crina Arghirescu Rogard. Photography by Chris Mottalini.]