JG Neukomm Architecture invites guests for an exclusive hardhat tour of its in-progress renovation of 20 Exchange Place, one of Lower Manhattan's most distinguished Art Deco towers. Completed in 1931 and originally home to the City Bank Farmers Trust Company, the building carries decades of accumulated history that JGNA has treated not as backdrop but as active design material.

The tour will move through the building's lobby, model units, and 19th-floor amenity spaces, currently under construction, offering an early look at a project that asks what it means to bring a historic structure forward without erasing what makes it worth preserving.

JGNA's approach draws on the building's original Art Deco vocabulary, with its ornate entrance arch, coffered ceilings, and bold geometry, while introducing a palette and material sensibility that feels unmistakably contemporary: muted burgundy and navy against quartzite columns, terrazzo floors, and quietly elegant furniture rooted in the interwar design tradition.

The 19th-floor amenity suite encompasses a food and beverage lounge, co-working areas, fitness and yoga spaces, a screening room, and a listening and podcast room, a program that reflects how residents actually live and work today, while remaining architecturally coherent with the tower's original spirit.

The building's history is richer than its financial origins suggest. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, nearby Coenties Slip was home to a loose community of artists including Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman, who found cheap studio space in a neighborhood the rest of Manhattan had largely written off. That chapter of the Financial District's history, bohemian and overlooked, is woven into JGNA's research for the project, surfacing in material choices, art selections, and the overall sensibility of a renovation that refuses the generic.

The tour is an opportunity to see the work in its evolving state, and to understand the constraints, the existing conditions, and the choices being made before the finishes arrive.

Guests will be guided through the space by Jean-Gabriel Neukomm, AIA, Principal of JGNA. Neukomm will then lead the group to JGNA’s FiDi office for an informal reception accompanied by drinks and light refreshments.