Covering the Plaza Hotel for a Facelift

Situation

Not long after its 100-year birthday, the historic hotel/condominium complex overlooking Central Park underwent a major six-month long cleaning effort of the hotel’s glazed white-clay brick face. To keep the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood looking beautiful during the facelift, Katara Hospitality sought to “camouflage” the construction scaffolding with a massive building wrap.

Solution

Britten shrouded the entire building in a durable, construction mesh mural depicting an architecturally correct rendering of the Plaza’s famous face, windows and all—18 panels total, each attached to the scaffolding it hides.

Impact

An artist and architect by training, Paul Britten did the massive drawing old-school. “I took a photograph, and I counted the bricks, every single brick from floor to floor, window sill to window sill,” he said. Spectators could not see in, but the mesh wrap allowed occupants inside to see out. Spotlighted in news reports and captured in photos shared on social media, the Plaza Hotel became a major “new” tourist attraction covered in the Britten-made wrap.