Cadillac House. A brief love affair.

For almost three years, Cadillac relocated its global marketing headquarters to SoHo from Detroit, where the company got its start and has maintained its engineering and manufacturing divisions. We were lucky enough to work on the award-winning experience center which closed its doors in 2018.

The move to New York was an experiment. The space reinvented the concept of a showroom into something inclusive yet outward looking. It was a flexible art gallery, a local coffee shop with meeting spaces and public lounge spaces like those found in high end hotel lobbies, and of course, there were cars.

For the lighting approach we wanted to focus on the future of the brand but also consider it’s origins. Taking cues from the Cadillac’s expressive history and progressive innovations in design, our concept was to incorporate lighting treatments reflective of this timeline.

At the heart of the space was a dramatic runway. As a celebration of the graphic neon treatments in their original headquarters, early showrooms, and their mid-century graphic signage, a large-scale custom neon light installation was designed to anchor the space and to provide graphic whimsy. To balance the retro neon, familiar, clean recessed linear LED slots continued the pattern of neon spacing outdoors in the entry terrace ceiling.

Flanking and terminating the runway were futuristic, interactive LED screens. When the screens were not cycling brand and marketing content, we collaborated with the media designers to incorporate lighting scenes into the screens, so they too could act as dynamic sources of light and mood.

We worked with Gensler to create a custom chandelier in the lounge. The black graphic frame of the fixture continues the linear theme of the lighting concept while the exposed filament lamps recall the marquee light fixtures of bygone days when cars sported tailfins and whitewall tires.