There's Something About Cars & Concrete: How We Created a Massive Bar Top for an Iconic Car Club
Located within Manhattan’s Pier 76 on the West Side Highway, The Classic Car Club is an exclusive club founded in London in 1995 where members can show off their rare vehicles and enjoy drinks with other members. While the first New York City clubhouse was originally located in Soho, the car club was recently relocated to a 40,000-square-foot space and remodelled by New York architect & designer, Marc Thorpe. Complete with a waterfront terrace, private lounge, restaurant, bar and simulator room, the club is the ultimate destination for car enthusiasts and design aficionados alike.
Outfitted with a stripped-back, no-fuss, industrial interior, the club needed a quality bar that could complete the look and feel of the place as well as stand up to repeated use. In the initial talks with the client, they mentioned they wanted to make the bar look as big and as heavy as possible. Not only that, but they also wanted it to be a single 30 foot long piece with a wood grain-textured die-wall, the latter of which would be the main support wall underneath the bar.
Going into this project, we had never cast a board-formed, solid wall like this. Not only that, but at over 30 feet long and over 3 inches thick, this bar would make for one of the largest castings we’d ever done. Requiring about 4000 lbs of concrete to cast, the die wall and the bar top had to be done in a single pour and cast respectfully. To top things off, we had to engineer the last 8 feet of the bar to balance on a custom-welded armature within the cast countertop in order to finish what was also one of the largest waterfall ends we had ever done.
Despite the size and scale of this project, as well as all the “firsts” we encountered, the job turned out to be a major success. Per the client’s request, we were able to embed the club’s logo into the die wall and fashioned the rebar reinforcement to extend out of the wall and become the foot rest. Seeing the bar in its fully-installed, final form, it's incredibly rewarding knowing that we had a hand in creating a space where people can not only get together and see some of the most incredible cars ever made, but also get to enjoy a nice drink as well while they do it.
Marc Thorpe Marc Thorpe Design was founded in 2010 by architect and industrial designer, Marc Thorpe. Thorpe is known internationally for his innovative and dynamic work, taking a rigorous approach to the integration of architecture, design and hand craftsmanship. The studio conceptualizes design while embracing process and has the resources to produce consistent communication platforms. These include architecture, interior design, graphic design, furniture design, product design, retail and exhibit design.
Classic Car Club of Manhattan - Classic Car Club is the world-famous private club that gives its members the keys to a fleet of the most amazing cars ever built, from Ferraris and Aston Martins to American muscle and modern racers. For more than a decade, Classic Car Club has been an escape from the ordinary and the cause of a riotous time, be it rallying across the continents, racing on the track, or just sharing a drink and a story with fellow members at any of its clubrooms around the world.