Noë & Associates were appointed to create the name, brand strategy, and marketing campaign for Beckford House & Tower. Located on East 80th and East 81st Streets, we worked with developer Icon and award-winning design firm Studio Sofield to create a brand identity and collateral that elegantly complement these gracious residential buildings with the right balance of classic and contemporary. The 104 apartments recall the grandeur of the work of Rosaria Candela and celebrate an artisanal and handcrafted approach to interiors. The craftsmanship, grand spaces, and exquisite detailing inherent to the building are celebrated throughout all the communications. The uniqueness of the sister buildings is illustrated in the brand identity – two distinctive tassels which will be incorporated in stone into the finished facades, intertwining to become one.

“I approach design as a series of emotional experiences. Each space with its own narrative, like if someone could tell a story while walking through the building.”

“Known for his unique take on modernism, William Sofield believes that design must not only look good but live well.”

Every detail of the project was considered to reflect the inherent quality in the finished buildings. Silk and linen papers were combined with the most intricate artisanal engravings and multi-level embossings, creating a suite of materials evoking times gone by.

“We manufactured many thousands of custom crafted stones. Each was individually cut to size, shaped, finished and numbered, to be hand-laid by expert stonemasons.”

“So much is now said about ‘lifestyle’ and how people can be categorised into ‘types’. This has been overplayed. People define their own lives and I just want to help them express that”.

Alvaro Siza’s architecture has been fittingly described as ‘poetic modernism’, with the Pritzker Prize jury noting that ‘his shapes, molded by light, have a deceptive simplicity about them; they are honest’. With profound clarity and a forward-thinking vision, 611 West 56th Street proves quality, not quantity, is indeed more. Our brand and marketing materials for Alvaro Siza’s first ever USA project very much reflect this ethos, which are all encapsulated in the sales gallery. Designed for developers Sumaida + Khurana and LENY, with interior designers Gabellini Sheppard, the experience offers a calm respite from the buzzing city outside.

“Our collaborator Álvaro Siza has designed a building that we hope will be viewed as an elegant and timeless stone monolith, reflective of the quality and purity of design that defines his work.”

“Since behind my building I had a big black black tower, I thought that to reinforce this vertical line, I should make it white.”

Developers Sumaida + Khurana think that many New York development tends to be about excessive gestures, extravagance over elegance, and developers have a tendency to focus on the transitory versus the timeless. The goal with their projects is very much the opposite of that. “We care about detailing, and about creating something refined and understated — architecture that stands the test of time”, Amit Khurana. This refined and understated sensibility permeates through all of the materials and experiences designed for 611 West 56 Street. The subtle palette of warm grey and white was referential of the Perla Bianca limestone façade with granite base. The materials also express the structure’s slender sculptural profile which has been envisioned as a striking white volume, a monolithic form, a sculptural masterpiece by one of the greatest living architects of our time.

“Siza brings with him a singular level of care and craft rare to the profession, especially today — and even more on the New York stage, which is increasingly dominated by glass-and-steel skyscrapers.”

“The concept of simplicity, the notion of utility, and how both of these create a world of comfort and pleasure. It’s this idea of how you take architectural space and create an emotional response.”

“Architecture contains sculptural elements, and also has many other relations — with music, with cinema, with literature. In architecture, there are convergences of different forms of art.”