Deep in Vouge

Metamorphosis Salon - Great Neck, Long Island NY - Alan Buchsbaum (1969)

“Buchsbaum designed Metamorphosis, a women’s beauty salon and men’s clothing store in the Long Island suburbs, as an inhabitable work of Pop Art, a full-scale fantasy of mod colors, finishes, forms, and super-graphics. The exterior, faced with one-foot strips of red porcelain-enameled steel, featured glass windows and two doors with giant-scaled human profiles, one for each shop. The curving interior wall that separated the store from the salon was painted in ten shades of lipstick pink and one shade of eyeshadow blue; the “VIP” room, or pedicure area, sported floor-to-ceiling horizontal stripes in a full spectrum of colors. Cabinets in white laminate, chairs in shiny white vinyl, and a white tile floor with inlaid bands of pink exaggerated the entry and seating area. Beneath the distracting surfaces and sensations, a rational plan organized the salon’s multi-staged program. Metamorphosis was an efficient workplace and highly stylized commercial architecture. The owner noted, “People feel young when they’re here, and I know that the architect’s design will be modern for many years to come.”

redraw of this thing frommmmm. ? 2022 good lord