In the fifty years since its passage in 1965, the New York City Landmarks Law has preserved outstanding buildings of cultural, social, economic, political, and architectural history. Interiors, though, have only been protected since 1973, as the new book Interior Landmarks: Treasures of New York recounts. Authors Judith Gura and Kate Wood focus on 47 colorful examples of the city’s current 117 interior landmarks. From the infamous Tweed Courthouse, centerpiece of the largest corruption case in New York history, to the glamorous Art Deco Rainbow Room, to the modernist Ford Foundation Building, whose garden-filled atrium prefigures green design, Gura and Wood examine the original construction and style, exceptional design features, materials, and architectural details, as well as the challenges to preserving these landmark interiors.
Judith Gura
Design historian Judith Gura is on the faculty of the New York School of Interior Design and serves as a contributing editor to Art+ Auction magazine. Her previous books include Guide to Period Styles for Interiors, A History of Interior Design, Design After Modernism, and New York Interior Design, 1935–1985.
Kate Wood
Kate Wood is the President of the preservation advocacy group Landmark West! and teaches in the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.