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This page would not have been possible if it weren't for all of the hard work put in by Jeff McCrystal. He wrote this fantastic essay on the restaurant and Alexander Girard which opened my eyes to a world of new information! He also sent the scans of the Interiors Magazine review of the restaurant! Thanks Jeff!
Alexander Girard's Dream Village: La Fonda del Sol, New York (1961-1971)
By Jeff McCrystal
History
“Even the salt shakers smile in Alexander Girard’s dream village of glittering suns and amiable puppets…” begins Olga Gueft’s 1961 review “The Inn of the Sun” for the "new" La Fonda del Sol restaurant for Interiors (Gueft, 89). Girard’s design was one of a trio of stellar Restaurant Associates’ venues that endure in New York restaurant history, (including one that thrives today) The Four Seasons, The Forum of the Twelve Caesars, and La Fonda del Sol. This line from Gueft’s review gives some indication of the magnitude of attention each designer involved gave each project:
"It is interesting, in these preliminary remarks to note that all three of the assignments extended beyond the interiors, as such, to include graphics, signs, menus, matchboxes; plus tableware, uniforms, service carts, waiters stations” (Gueft, 89).
She is speaking, of course, of all three aforementioned restaurants. But this article--and its attendant photographs (shot by Louis Reens--although there are several by Charles Eames, the article has several color and black and white shots of the interior, few, however, of the china)--betrays a sentiment for Girard’s "Inn of the Sun", his whimsical bistro in the heart of Manhattan, a restaurant, whose plans were "based on a atmosphere less imperial and on a tariff less formidable than those of the Forum or the Four Seasons" (Gueft, 89)--a restaurant for the people, so to speak.
The fact remains: what Girard did with a boxy corner of the glass curtained Time-Life building, it seems, according to the record, was to isolate it by using both stylized and actual cultural references, a theme, if you will ("La Fonda", The Forum and The Four Seasons, but especially La Fonda del Sol, are considered, and not without merit, the first "theme restaurants".) The article shows the folk Spanish and Portuguese influences that inform Girard’s choice of materials, color ways, and basic structural/architectural references in the physical space of the public areas of the restaurant.
Design Credit
I have read that the designer L. Garth Huxtable may have assisted in designing La Fonda del Sol, but this may be a misattribution. I say misattribution for two reasons:
1. I've only seen it written in one article (on Huxtable's work in general, including his work for Restaurant Associates)
2. L. Garth Huxtable was a designer on The Four Seasons
It may turn out that Mr. Huxtable was a designer on La Fonda del Sol. But, as far as any documentation I have found, this was a solo project with Girard's consultants employed for specific aspects of the interior (Richard Kelly was Girard's Lighting Consultant and John Wallace fabricated the many metalwork suns that adorn the restaurant--see, Gueft, 89-99). It may turn out, too, that L. Garth Huxtable was a consulting designer on the project for Restaurant Associates (Roeder, NP). Of course, Ray and Charles Eames were collaborators on the project (I suspect) far beyond their furniture designs (see: design impact/design icons).
Ceramics
Mr. Girard, a total design control automaton once activated, probably designed everything in La Fonda del Sol down to the ashtrays. Mayer China of Beaver Falls PA was the pottery that fired Girard’s ceramic designs. His color ways are evident even in pieces that are off the shelf Mayer pieces that were pulled out of service for the restaurant (although quite a few pieces are Girard originals). Minners distributed the china, although, some pieces also bear the mark “4S” leading me to believe that Minners had a special account with Restaurant Associates through The Four Seasons. Pieces seem to have been made between 1961 and 1972 (Mayer date stamps all its pieces). Apparently, some La Fonda shapes were produced in other color ways after Interpace took over the pottery. La Fonda de Sol closed in early 1972 or late 1971.
Design philosophy
It is impossible to discuss La Fonda del Sol without pointing out its designer's connections and other contemporaneous projects.
Alexander Girard had developed a deep and abiding affection for vernacular artifacts, toys and dolls of the southwest, Mexico and Spanish America in general. Alexander Girard was also chief textile designer for the Herman Miller Furniture Company (which had just become Herman Miller, Inc. in 1960), and was spending a great deal of time in New York with the restaurant and with Herman Miller's cutting edge Textiles and Objects Shop, situated nearby in midtown Manhattan. As one would expect, the Herman Miller Textiles and Objects Shop (or T&O, 1961) sold Herman Miller textiles (curtains, wall hangings, etc.) but also hand made dolls and by Marilyn Neuhart and Girard and handmade Central and South American dolls and toys of which Girard was a huge collector (his collection was eventually one of the largest collections of Central and South American folk artifacts in the US. This collection now resides in a New Mexico museum). Quite a few of Girard's Indo-Spanish-American artifacts were in the decor of this restaurant.
How this philosophy affected the design of the restaurant: More than a mere homage to southwest culture, the design was, happily, typically, Alexander Girard. Abstract and iconic with stylized suns as primary motif--the Eames low-back chairs nearly invisible in their sleekness-- (the table settings must have been fairly important--the food and service, its uniqueness, made up much of its allure, although there is no indication that it was a very highly rated restaurant, gastronomically) -the restaurant was reverent in its use of cultural references in its overall graphic and physical design: intimate and earthy in small alcoves--modern and iconic in the large open areas.
Design impact, design icons
Of course, when you are in the design business, and especially when you are in the creative stew called “Cranbrook/move-West/go-to-work-for-Herman Miller” (Girard knew Charles Eames and Ray Kaiser from Detroit)--you can always get a little creative input around the sake table or in your conversation pit. So, Charles and Ray designed a new chair, chair base (the table and table base were not used in the restaurant) for the new restaurant at Girard's request (they had designed furniture for Girard before--for the J. Irwin Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, a furniture series designed in 1956 that became Herman Miller's slinky "Aluminum Group"). The La Fonda chairs continued to be made well into the nineties (by Vitra in Europe).
Collecting Girard
It is doubtful if many today would know this restaurant if Charles Eames' chairs weren't so popular. The resurgence of modernism has brought the word, and thus, the reality of, La Fonda del Sol to light. The world is getting reacquainted with Alexander Girard (who passed away in 1993) as a designer (the Japanese are very savvy about Girard—his designs are very hip there). Some of his fabrics and recreations of his designs have become available. Kvadrat/Maharam (Textiles), Maximo (Dolls and other consumer products), are just two companies that are producing Girard-designed or inspired products for public consumption.
The Cooper-Hewitt/National Design Museum of the Smithsonian mounted an exhibition that contained, among other relics, serving pieces from La Fonda del Sol in its exhibit "The Opulent Eye of Alexander Girard". Richard Wright, Los Angeles Modern, and other modernist auction houses oversee case lots of Alexander Girard ceramics, ephemera, textiles and furniture that sell for significant hammer prices. Tattered souvenir menus routinely sell for impressive prices on eBay.
Summarizing Girard and his work
Girard was certainly a modernist, (and a busy one, too) but he tempered the perceptions of austere modernism with color and pattern and intimacy (this was his genius at Herman Miller, and with other commissions undertaken in his long career). In my estimation, outside of his own home and folk art collection, I do not believe that Girard applied more of his own personal passion to any other corporate commission than he did with La Fonda del Sol.
Girard designed two other restaurants in his career after 1960, The Compound (in Santa Fe) and L' Etoile (in NYC). The Compound still stands. It is purportedly a nice place but it doesn't seem to have the design impact of La Fonda de Sol. L' Etoile seems to have been an austere, cold place. It is defunct. La Fonda del Sol was closed to create a bank branch for the convenience of Rockefeller Center area customers.
So, it is up to collectors and art historians to put La Fonda back together again (at least in their heads--or in cyberspace). This would seem excessive IF the interior orchestrations of Mr. Girard did not transcend mere drapery and lighting control. What Alexander Girard did with the space Joe Baum allotted him was create an icon of mid-twentieth century modernist whimsy, conservatively and robustly crafted, comfortable in its warm and inviting spaces, beautiful in its juxtaposition of folk arcana and modernist sensibilities.
Sources
Gueft, Olga (1961). The Inn of the Sun: even the salt shakers smile in Alexander Girard's dream village of glittering suns and amiable puppets, the most deceptively childlike of New York’s restaurants. Interiors, 88 - 99
Roeder, Randy (2002). The 1950s (website on the work of L. Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable). http://www.public.coe.edu/~roeder/huxtable/success.htm, NP.
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