By David E
Loft Design: New York Interior Designers Created the Specialty!
In 1982, when lofts were legalized in New York City, a new era began in loft interior design. No longer were artists forced to live behind painted-black windows and huddle like illegal immigrants: they could show off their spaces and sell it to the highest bidders. This turned New York interior designers and New York architects into loft design architect and design specialists. They were the first to address the blessings and the difficulties of loft design: huge windows, high ceilings, pipes, old floors, old bathrooms, non-existent kitchens. New York interior designers kept the high ceilings and made the pipes into industrial artifacts of interest; they polished the floors and made its roughness seem like a blessing; they added open kitchens and spa bathrooms and suddenly they had places that were worthy of being featured in Architectural Digest, Vogue Living and Elle Décor. As the movement to loft living spread to other cities, Manhattan interior designers and architects were called upon by Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and other major urban centers where loft design was becoming an important design movement. – Karen Fisher