Hoffman Auto Showroom
- Architect
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- City
- Manhattan, NY
The Hoffman Auto Showroom was a small automobile dealership at 430 Park Avenue, designed in 1954 by Frank Lloyd Wright for European car importer Max Hoffman. Just 3,600 square feet on the ground floor of a Midtown office tower, it packed one of Wright's signature curvilinear ramps into a commercial storefront, letting up to five cars be displayed on a sloping floor. It is one of the rare Wright interiors ever built in Manhattan.
the building
The sloping showroom floor. Wright's ramp, familiar from his museum and gallery work, was scaled down here into a sloped floor that could display up to five automobiles at once inside a glass-and-steel storefront.
the architect
Frank Lloyd Wright designed the showroom for Max Hoffman, son of a Viennese Rolls-Royce dealer. Hoffman originally intended the space for his Jaguar dealership, but by the time it was completed he had switched to selling Mercedes-Benz, and a large model jaguar built for the showroom had to be shipped back to Coventry unused.
More on Frank Lloyd Wrightsignificance
The showroom was demolished in early April 2013 by owners Midwood Investment & Management and Oestreicher Properties to make way for a TD Bank branch.
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nearby
- 432 Park Avenue
- Ritz Tower
- Fuller Building
- Central Synagogue
- AT&T Corporate Headquarters Building (later Sony Plaza, now 550 Madison Avenue)
- Lever House