Artisan: Tiffany Studios
Louis Comfort Tiffany’s highly celebrated studios closed their interior decoration operations three years after their work in 1907 at the U.S. Custom House. The glass shop continued to produce, but they stopped creating highly imaginative interior designs. Specifications for Tiffany’s work at the Custom House have not been preserved, but based on correspondence, the Studios were responsible for the mirrors, wood paneling, heat registers (Collector’s Suite), bronze grilles (Post Office), and unspecified cabinet work (elsewhere in the building). In October 1906, Tiffany Studios was issued a sub-contract for the special finishes and decorations of the Collector’s Suite, specifically the woodwork. The woodwork was hand carved for an extra $3,800 and produced to the highest standards of Tiffany. Emptied today of its original furnishings, the Collector’s Suite has lost the rich texture that usually accompanied Tiffany’s interior designs. The woodwork still remains an outstanding example of Tiffany work; its intricate carved patterns are utterly breathtaking with the intricate carved patterns.
Louis Tiffany began his interior design and furnishings business after traveling to Paris and throughout the Middle East, studying art and absorbing European and Byzantine forms and colors into his unique style. Gradually, he built a well-trained staff in New York to design furnishings, to combine these furnishings into interior architecture, and to select antiques and Tiffany-designed objects, fabrics and papers to support the style of these spaces.
By 1900, Tiffany Studios had developed an eminent reputation for large scale interior designs, having worked extensively with renowned architectural firms such as McKim, Mead & White and Carrere & Hastings. Cass Gilbert did not allot the task of designing the important office spaces to the studios. He utilized Tiffany Studios in a limited way because he felt that, as architect, he was the right person to take charge of all other matters relative to the building.
