Burberry New York (New York City, New York)

 store / shop, clothes store / boutique, commercial building

6-story commercial building originally completed in 1916. A new facade for Burberry was completed in 2003. Reminiscent of a Mondriaan painting and designed to resemble the iconic Burberry plaid, it features random geometric patterns in beige limestone panels, dark-brown steel, and green-tinted glass, arranged into squares of varying sizes.

Burberry Group is a British luxury fashion house, distributing clothing and fashion accessories and licensing fragrances since 1856. Its distinctive tartan pattern has become one of its most widely copied trademarks. Burberry is most famous for its iconic trench coat, which was invented by founder Thomas Burberry. The company has branded stores and franchises around the world, and also sells through concessions in third-party stores. This is its largest store, covering 24,000 square feet.

The ground floor has bronze service doors at both ends; in the middle the entrance's glass double-doors are flanked by a plate-glass display-window at the left, and another at the right that is twice as wide. Above the entry, the warm limestone panels extend up through the 3rd floor, pierced by a very small, square window at the 2nd floor. This bay is somewhat west of center; to either side are systems of steel-framed glass with panes of varying sizes in square and rectangles. Spandrels of lighter-colored limestone squares separate the 2nd & 3rd floors on both sides, with another, vertical band of squares dividing the east side into a narrow and wide section. Similar patterning occurs on the top three floors, with a large panel of limestone squares at the east end on the 4th-5th floors, another vertical band shifted farther west than the one below, running up the top three floors, a spandrel band separating the 4th & 5th floor, and a large, 2-story square expanse of glass at the top-left corner, divided only by thin mullions into smaller panes. A thin border of beige limestone frames the whole design.

us.burberry.com/store/