A Million Little Tiles: Foster + Partners Design Understated Showroom on Madison Square Park

Lord Norman Foster, the hyper-modern British Pritzker Prize winner, is having a moment in New York, with numerous projects underway across Manhattan. But his latest hews away from the slick techno-futurism for which Lord Foster is best known, instead embracing a city landmark at one of our most famous intersections.

Last July, Spansh tile maker Porcelanosa, one of that nation’s largest producers of tiles and ceramics, purchased 202 Fifth Avenue for $40 million. Better known as the Commodore Criterion Building, the six-story granite structure once housed the Commodore Manufacturing Corp. and Criterion Bell & Specialty Co., two Brooklyn-based Christmas ornament makers (hence the building’s best known feature, a troupe of carolers permanently affixed to the second-story facade). Now, the 18,000-square-foot building will house Porcelanosa’s U.S. flagship, with interiors designed by Foster + Partners.
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