Lilian H. Weinreich 

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Lilian H Weinreich Architects is a boutique full-service architectural and interior design firm based in New York City

with roots in Australia. Led by renowned architect Lilian Weinreich, AIA, RAIA, LEED AP BD+C, NCARB, the firm is

known for its creative signature design, resulting in completed projects that are transformative, original, creative, and

functional.

Where were you raised, how did your family influence your career choice, and at what point in your life did

you decide to pursue architecture?

Growing up in Australia influenced my aesthetics—both in the sensitivities to the natural environment and its vast

landscape, ocean, sky and sunlight, as well as through the modernist home in which I lived. I grew up in a modest

Harry Seidler-designed home in Australia built for my parents, who are holocaust survivors, in the early 1960s. The

architecture of the home embodied the principles of the early International Style design. Seidler is credited as being

the first architect to fully express the principles of Bauhaus in Australia. Alongside Glenn Murcutt, Harry Seidler is no

doubt one of Australia’s most internationally recognized and iconic architects. In 2013, the Weinreich house was

given a Sydney Heritage Building Registry citation. Raised in a home and within a family that fully embraced the

methodology of modernism distinctly shaped my aesthetics as an architect. Although I have developed my own style,

my aesthetics have not veered far from the modern idiom in in which I grew up.

For Weinreich House – see the links below

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=jIGJmn4vkccC&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA120

https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/events/weinreich-house-tour

https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8maguf4d9sC&pg=PA235&lpg=PA235&dq=weinreich+home+harry+seidler&so

urce=bl&ots=MufhDV_kBU&sig=5H8RCHzMOEEf0Egfy3vONfFYF1w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip1oWclZraAhUq

tlkKHR7DBjsQ6AEIZDAN#v=onepage&q=weinreich%20home%20harry%20seidler&f=false

The other major impact on my formative years was the ten year period I studied painting under Professor Maximillian

Feuerring’s tutelage. My parents recognized my artistic talents at a young age and, when I was 14, they arranged

private art tuition with Professor Feuerring in his Woollarah studio. Feuerring was considered to be one of Australia's

key figures in the post WWII émigré modern art movement. He did not teach children, but made an exception for me,

whom he considered a prodigy. I went on to choose Feuerring as subject of my Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Thesis

at Sydney University. Feuerring considered architecture as the discipline that combines all the arts—a perspective

which probably influenced my later career path as an architect.

Lilian H. Weinreich 

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Maximilian Feuerring (1896‐1985)  

Figures in Blue and Green 

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/maximilian-feuerring-1896-1985-132-c-e804bf5a83

The day after I became a registered architect in Australia, I got on a plane and flew to New York City. This was an

unexpectedly difficult transition—and yet now I could not imagine working anywhere else in the world. New York has

awarded me amazing opportunities and career choices for which I am very grateful.

Does your firm have a “specialty”?

My firm has carved a niche primarily in the design of high-end residential apartment alterations in New York City. Our

projects include lofts, combinations, and duplex apartments in pre- and post-war coop, condo, and brownstone

buildings.

Lilian H. Weinreich 

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Noho Duplex

Photo: ©Francis

Dzikowski

My firm’s work has tripled over the last few years. While the size of my commissions has greatly increased, I never

turn away a job because of its size. Two of my best projects are a 140 square foot accessible bathroom-dressing

room and a 400 square foot studio. If I see a design opportunity with a great client, I take the job.

Central Park South, New York

Accessible Bathroom-Dressing Room (150sf)

Photo: ©Steve Freihon

Lilian H. Weinreich 

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Central Park South

Studio (400 sf)

Photo: ©Francis

Dzikowski

Do you have a signature design element consistent throughout your work?

Australians, by nature, have honesty in their intent; I strive to find the most direct and honest resolution in my work.

My firm's signature vocabulary is an essential reductivism, fastidious attention to detail, and sensitivity to the intrinsic

properties of building materials and the environment. This pure sensibility evolves not from a predetermined

architectural style but rather from the intent to design clean, functional spaces that operate as the background to what

is contained within them. Formal simplicity requires intellectual rigor and aesthetic restraint. Working with space, light,

and materials as habitable sculptural elements, I construct architectural settings that are dramatic in their purity of

means. The end results are environments that are opulent in the clarity of their spatial resolutions.

Recurrent elements occur in many of my projects; however, the resolution is always unique to each situation. Full

height sliding panels, a predominate design feature in my work, can enhance a feeling of verticality—no matter if the

floor to ceiling height is an eleven foot loft space as in the Noho Duplex or an eight foot post-war high-rise as in the

West 72 Duplex. The Noho Duplex’s treated raw steel and glass industrial sliding panels were fabricated on site by

Korean ship builders. The thinly framed aluminium panels with custom caps to hide the exposed ceiling tracks for the

West 72nd Street Duplex were custom fabricated in Italy.

Lilian H. Weinreich 

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Noho Duplex

Photo: ©Francis Dzikowski

The lighting schemes in all my work are designed to enhance spatial qualities. Innovative solutions can often be

found at the transition between ceiling heights. All dropped ceilings in my work relate to function. In the West 72nd

Street Duplex, lit covers soften a hovering ceiling plane. This dropped ceiling houses the stair channel and beam

supports, recessed light fixtures, sliding panel tracks, as well as delineates the circulation path below. A carved

ceiling step, accommodates headroom at the bottom of the stairs. In the Noho duplex, lit cove edges also soften the

lowered ceiling at the entry to the powder room and master bathroom. They are ghosted behind the full-height, 11

foot glazed panel doors that slide to close the bathroom openings.

West 72nd Street Duplex

Photo: ©Francis Dzikowski

Lilian H. Weinreich 

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I treat all interior stairs in duplexes as a design opportunity. In the Noho Duplex, the biggest single challenge was in

the design and fabrication of the staircase. The stair was required to be both code and child safety compliant. Its

unique features include co-planar, clear glass rails and childproof open slots under welded bent steel angles.

Supported by a sizable structural post concealed in the wall behind the stair, the stairs attach with moment

connections. All metalwork on this job, including the stairs and door panels were site fabricated, forging a unique,

hand-crafted industrial product.

Noho Duplex

Photo: ©Francis Dzikowski

In the West 72nd Duplex’s open tread stair, all

exposed steel including the stringer, header

plate, and tread supports were wire-brushed with

a directional circular motion and given a

protective lacquered coat. The oak treads were

shaped to follow the diagonal stringer run and

stained to match the new walnut flooring. The

leading edge of the stair treads feature a gently

folded and elongated Platner/Saarinen edge.

West 72nd Street Duplex

Photo: ©Francis Dzikowski

Lilian H. Weinreich 

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What are the biggest challenges in your work?

One of the biggest challenges in my practice is how to take an ordinary space and turn it into something spectacular

and unique in the most straightforward practical and functional way. An obsessive attention to detail and to lighting

sets my practice apart. The end result is always unique and always within the modern vocabulary. My aesthetic is

modern, simple, clean, elegant, sophisticated and natural – “soft, livable modern”. My goal is to always aim for

architecture that is timeless in its highest quality of design and execution.

If the client is not working with an interior designer, I encourage them to do so. Failing that, I try to get as involved as I

can with the furnishings. A poorly furnished apartment is the bane of my life. I recall that my parents would not

change the curtains, carpeting, or paint the house without their architect’s approval—to me, that is an ideal client!

I refrain from working with clients who seek “traditional” detailing. I believe that there was a time and place in history

for traditional detailing; a replication of these elements feels artificial. We have so much technology available to us

today, and that should be our vocabulary.

What are you working on currently?

My favorite job at the moment is an apartment remodel on Park Avenue at 89th Street. The apartment is designed as

an elegant open entertaining space and a private enclave for two “empty nesters”. Three enlarged portals with over-

scaled custom woodwork and shallow centrioles form a sensuous shadowing effect—which the collaborating interior

decorator has called a ‘life changing experience”!

Park Ave @ 89th Street, Rendering (Under Construction)

One of the most exciting features is the super-scaled artwork, which some may consider edgy. The two living room

pieces on the east wall measure eight feet high by five feet wide. The client’s son is a gifted industrial design student

Lilian H. Weinreich 

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at the Rhode Island School of Design. He has curated an art collection for his parents selected from fellow student

works. This collection could well become a prominent collection—the early oeuvre of the next generation of American

artists. I created large expansive art walls by eliminating many doorways. Their integration appeals to the artist in me;

the works are bold, abstract, and very large and feature prominently throughout the apartment.

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Favorite Food?

Kosher Tripe Soup and Polish Makowiec (Poppy Seed Cake/Roll)

Recent purchase?

A painting by my late art professor in an on-line live auction

Guilty pleasure?

Swiss Teuscher Champagne Chocolate Truffles

Book recommendation?

The Right Time To Speak by Aneta Weinreich (my mother’s happy and sad memoirs to be published July this year).

Favourite Movie?

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) Directed by Peter Greenaway

Subscriptions?

Architectural Record, Architecture Review, Architect (AIA Publication), AA (Australian Architecture), Interior Design,

Architectural Digest.

Transformative travel experience?

All my travel experiences have been transformative and directly correlate to many of the inspirational ideas that find

their way into my work. One of my most memorable trips recently was back to Sydney, Australia. Amongst the

impressive architecture I saw, three buildings stand out. 200 George Street uses wood to humanize a high-rise;

Indigo Slam, Judith Neilson’s residential home, transforms into a habitable sculpture; and One Central Park, in

Chippendale, a multi-use residential complex, features impressive vertical hanging gardens and a huge cantilevered

mirrored heliostat.

What tech gadgets can’t you live without?

My i-phone and laptop and, of course, chargers for both!

Finally, advise to all Architecture students

Architecture is a tough profession – if you love it, the rewards are immense.