Critics slam "painful" auction of items from Philip Johnson's The Four Seasons restaurant

The restaurant’s interiors feature designs by Pritzker Prize-winner Philip Johnson, furniture, tableware and other items by Seagram Building designer Mies Van der Rohe, Hans J. Wegner and others and custom-made Knoll furniture. ... Those items will be included in the 500 lots headed for auction on July 26. Dezeen highlights critics’ frustration at what Aaron Betsky, leading US architecture critic and dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture rues as the dispersal of  “one of the rarest phenomena in Modernism: a place where the architecture, the furniture, the table settings, the service, the food, and even the clientele was of a piece.”

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As for the space itself, of-the-moment restaurateurs Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi, and Jeff Zalaznick (of the Major Food Group and trendy restaurants like Parm and Dirty French) have signed on to take over and partner with Rosen, who will increase the rent to $3 million a year. Since the space is landmarked, many of the original design and architectural elements will have to remain, though they will, of course, be part of the new restaurant.