Junoon Restaurant, New York
20 November
At Junoon Restaurant in New York, the front façade is composed of an undulating “basket weave” sculpture carved from blocks of black limestone, hand chiseled into horizontal ribbons of concave and convex expressions, and then hand-brushed into a finish that feels like silk. Blocks of basket weave are laid together to create the illusion of a weave, that starts off by being opaque, and moves into a vertical open screen that lets one get a tantalizing glimpse of the glittering “Junoon Walk” as soon as one enters.The Junoon walk is punctuated by a procession of tall stone sculptures. The tree of life, symbolic in eastern cultures of the cycle of birth death and rebirth, is a subordinate theme throughout the restaurant. It is expressed repeatedly in art and in sculpture to take one through the various destinations of the 20,000 square-foot space. Surrounded by the undulating marble sculptures, seduced by a waterfall of xenon lights twinkling in the Corten steel reflecting pool crafted by the sculptor Michael Tong, one moves from the foyer, to the fifty foot long “Junoon walk.” The walk through the center of the Junoon is the focal point of the restaurant. The visitor walks past the tree-of-life sculptures which sit in a rectangular water body, an extension of the reflecting pool in the foyer. A Venetian mirror hangs at the vanishing point, creating the illusion of a Junoon walk that extends into infinity.
The basket weave sculptures in the entrance, as well as the sequence of eight-foot tree of life pyramid sculptures are designed by Tarik Currimbhoy, and created by Sana Stone.