The Bryant Park Tower lobby was conceived as a public living room for Midtown Manhattan — a space where the intensity of 42nd Street gives way to material serenity. Kohn Pedersen Fox specified a trio of marbles that would define the spatial experience: Statuario for walls, Rainforest Green for accent columns, and Nero Marquina for the reception desk.
Sourcing Statuario for a single New York lobby was a multi-continent effort. The white marble, from the Carrara basin's most selective quarries, required us to evaluate over 200 blocks across three visits to Italy. The criteria were exacting: pure white backgrounds with warm grey veining, no mica inclusions, and blocks large enough to yield 3-meter slabs without structural flaws. Only 12 blocks met the standard.
Rainforest Green presented a different challenge. This Brazilian granite, quarried near Espírito Santo, is technically a granodiorite with distinctive green feldspar crystals that give it a geological depth resembling a tropical canopy. The challenge was color consistency: because Rainforest Green is a plutonic rock formed by slow cooling deep in the earth, each block varies significantly in crystal density and color saturation. Our team spent two weeks at the quarry hand-selecting blocks that matched across the tonal spectrum.
The installation schedule was compressed by the building's construction timeline, requiring us to deliver panels in three staggered shipments while maintaining matching between batches. We reserved 15% additional material for potential matching issues, a precaution that proved wise when three Statuario panels required replacement after the general contractor discovered hairline fractures during installation.
The completed lobby has become a case study in material ambition for New City commercial spaces. The Rainforest Green columns, illuminated by fiber-optic uplighting, shift from deep forest tones to almost emerald highlights throughout the day, while the Statuario walls provide a calm white canvas that frames the city views visible through the lobby's 12-meter glass curtain wall.
We needed a lobby that felt as permanent as the park outside its doors.
— Kohn Pedersen Fox