That’s what I tried to do, and I think that’s the hardest thing to do. It’s very hard to get that foundry to work with you. Atelier Saint Jacques is the same foundry that had made beautiful bronzes for Bourdelle and Rodin in France. Turn over one of the bronze boxes and on the back you’ll see they say: Peter Marino, Atelier Saint Jacques, and their number. What’s amazing is that, no matter what the size, they have a truly imposing weight. Some of the boxes you make are the size of a bureau, others are the size of a snuffbox. They’re in modern homes, they’re in 18th-century French homes. The biggest thrill for me is seeing how people use them, and what sort of rooms they put them in. I had a show in Switzerland for their first exhibition, which sold out, and then I showed them at the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris twice and sold out there too. I began making bronze boxes in all different sizes and different shapes and different everything, and I was very fortunate that people liked them. Why did you choose to make boxes in particular?īecause I have a deep background in art history, I had always wanted to make something that could go as well in Versailles as in a loft in SoHo, so that’s how this concept of bronze boxes started. My theory is that in a thousand years, the only thing that will remain of Peter Marino are these boxes. It’s one of those ancient arts that I’ve always related to. Melting the ingots in the pot, allowing eight hours for them to melt, pouring it in the molds. Working with bronze is just like making wine-it hasn’t changed. It’s done in completely the same way they did it in 500 BC, when they were making the first bronze shields and helmets. Have you ever been to a foundry where they pour bronze? Nothing is better than going to foundries. So, when I heard that all these bronze sculptures were pulled up from the bottom of the sea in perfect condition 2500 years later, I thought, “Ok, it’s bronze for me.” It’s a material I know I love. They barely even lasted 20-I was so naïve. I had really put my heart and soul into that building, and I made marble mosaic floors that I thought would be like Liberty of London and last 100 years. When they tore out the 10 floors of interiors in Barney’s in New York, it just devastated me. Architecture is very plastic, and very few structures are treated with respect over time. If a painting from 1300 is in bad shape it’s because it aged badly, but it’s not like anyone grabbed the painting and just changed it. If you’re a painter and you do a painting, people will pretty much leave it alone. What does remain is the façade that I did, so I’m happy about that, but I’m sure that’ll change in my lifetime, too. I did the original Barney’s and, 20 years later, they ripped everything out.

There are landmarks and everything, of course, but in today’s world I do a lot of commercial work, all these boutiques. I thought: nothing an architect creates really lasts.

At the same time, there was a private home I had built for a client that I thought was the most beautiful project I’d ever done in my life, and they had sold it, and the new owner had just moved in and was making changes. Now, I love anything bronze, and I had collected Renaissance bronzes since the 1980s, so this was a very exciting thing for me. How did you come to start making these bronze sculptures?Īround 10 years ago, they discovered a boat that sank in 350 BC as it was on its way to Italy from a Greek city on the Turkish coast, and they recovered all these wonderful bronzes in their original state. Now, you are revealing yourself to be a builder of artworks as well. You are renowned as an builder of luxurious edifices and a collector of contemporary art. Peter Marino's Bronze Mini Club Box (2011-16), available on Artspace Goldstein sat down with the maverick builder to discuss his lesser-known identity as an artist. To follow up on an interview we did with Marino earlier this year about his exceptional architectural career-to mark the release of Phaidon's definitive monograph, Peter Marino: Art Architecture- Artspace editor-in-chief Andrew M. Now, Marino, a onetime intimate of Warhol’s circle, has turned to making art himself-sculptural bronze boxes, to be precise.įired in the same French foundry used by Rodin, these gleaming objects d’art are suffused with references to the ancient architecture, Modern art, and Marino’s own signature aesthetic. The internationally acclaimed architect Peter Marino has spent his career building show-stopping spaces for blue-chip art galleries, luxury titans like Chanel and Louis Vuitton, and an elite circle of private clients, all the while drawing on an intimate understanding of the cutting-edge art of his time.

James 35 peter marino architect