CIOT STONE GALLERIA

Sunset Park, Brooklyn
32,000 sqft, Completed 2021
with Bando x Seidel Meersseman

This project converted an abandoned manufacturing space into a showroom and slab gallery for Ciot | New York. The building was formerly occupied by a machine manufacturing company, established by E.W. Bliss in the mid-1800s in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. E.W. Bliss made sheet metal, stamping machines, automobile machinery, and ultimately torpedoes.

Two new environments were created: an 18,000 sqft slab gallery and a 12,000 sqft showroom that includes offices and a workshop. Hospitality spaces are interspersed to host clients and collaborators. The gallery was conceived of as a hybrid between a stone yard and a museum. The space is also a functioning warehouse for the company’s specialty slabs. The former factory floor contains massive stone sculptures, indoor planters with trees, and varied workspaces. Stone slabs hang like tapestries on the restored industrial walls. The gallery is daylit by a renovated skylight that runs the length of the space, 45 feet in the air.

To us, the project meditates on a resource in a state of evolution, from geologic to decorative and functional. The spatial sequence tells a story of the possible transformations of natural stone—from rough-cut blocks to refined interior treatments, mosaics, furniture and sculpture. We sought to make architectural events inspired by the delight of visiting industrial stone yards—the drama of a slab floating through space on a crane or the feeling of a stone that is cold to the touch.

Design Team
Interior Design + Planning: Bando x Seidel Meersseman Lighting Design: Shimstone Design Studio
Entry Sculpture: Moss and Lam