The program calls for a new lobby space, a public stair between floors twenty and twenty-one, conference and media rooms, private offices, and semi-enclosed work stations. The existing layout was that of a straightforward office tower plan that surrounds a dense core containing elevators, ducting, and restrooms. Existing executive offices at the building’s perimeter cut off natural light and views from the circulation corridors.

The public stair and screen are one of two translucent walls located perpendicular to the building core; these serve as a vertical datum and send daylight deep into the floor plate (depicted in the drawing). The second wall is a suspended bronze and glass screen portraying an abstraction of Thomas Edison’s first sound studio (in photo).

To counteract the dense construction of the early twentieth century high-rise typology, the new public stair is treated as a minimal structure that introduces both verticality and the layering of lightweight materials that are important to the project’s theme.

The stair is fashioned from steel treads and risers, assembly-hung in a slot of empty space and silhouetted against a translucent screen. Dynamic bronze handrails follow a sine-cosine curve. A wire cloth veil drops at the face of the stair, covering the handrail and the side of the stair while adding a depth of field that doesn’t completely obscure visibility.

Inside meeting rooms there are a range of spaces, from the formal conference room depicted here to the casual lounge and listing rooms dispersed throughout the two floors. They are joined only through the design of tabletops which celebrate the planning and zoning envelopes of Rockefeller Center’s original urban planning of the 1920s.

In contrast to the translucent layering of screen walls, the dense service core is clad in wood paneling and saturated with a deep aubergine stain. Throughout the project, materials are chosen for their tactile and visually rich character, including slate, terrazzo, sisal matting for floors, wood cabinets, paneling, and custom metal assemblies for storage and workstations.

Circumnavigating the service core are CD racks, files, and workstations. These critical elements of the music company animate the corridor, simultaneously celebrating past accomplishments while introducing new musical ideas.

In the tradition of Rockefeller Center’s cast bronze ornaments, ceiling murals, and aluminum reliefs, Edison’s Apparition is a sculptural, three-dimensional relief; a disembodied memory piece recalling the invention of the record player.