Visiting The Vessel, in the vibrant core of Hudson Yards, is an experience that defies any traditional definition. It’s not a skyscraper, nor a sculpture, nor a building in the conventional sense. It’s a pure architectural gesture—a form to be physically inhabited, climbed, descended, traversed.
As I stepped into its geometric belly, surrounded by this structure unfolding like a golden spiral toward the sky, I immediately felt something very specific: I was walking inside a vase. But not a decorative one—an archetypal vase. A symbolic, profound container-space. The Vessel doesn’t hold plants or flowers, but rather people in motion, lifting them upward in an experience that feels meditative, rhythmic, suspended.
Right there, as I ascended one of its endless staircases suspended in air, I thought of Raremood and our deep love for handcrafted vases—each chosen not just for its beauty, but for the kind of inner space it evokes.
To us, a vase is never just a container. It is a primitive and noble form that brings order, welcomes, protects, enhances. Just like The Vessel: with its honeycomb structure, its open and perfect symmetry recalling Eastern art, Japanese ceramics, and pre-Columbian architecture. It is an object-architecture, much like the unique pieces we curate at Raremood. Some are carved, others thrown on a wheel, others still fired with raku techniques—but all of them tell a story of harmony and depth.
The Vessel is a monumental vase, and we move within its cavity like particles of water or light. It’s public art, architecture—but also an exercise in introspection, because it serves no specific function other than the rarest of all: to welcome and to elevate.
The difference lies in scale. We choose objects for the home; The Vessel is an object you walk into. But the soul is the same—a form that contains and tells a story.
As I walked out, I smiled. Because sometimes, even in the most vertical and fast-paced city in the world, you can encounter a gesture of emptiness and absolute beauty. A giant vase in the heart of New York, speaking the same silent language as the artisanal vases we love—and perhaps teaching us, once again, that the most precious space is the one that welcomes without intruding.