Restaurant Acoustics in The New York Times | BASWA Phon
How a seamless acoustical plaster ceiling let diners hear each other in a glass, concrete, and limestone restaurant, as reported in The New York Times.
How a seamless acoustical plaster ceiling let diners hear each other in a glass, concrete, and limestone restaurant, as reported in The New York Times.
In September 2015, The New York Times reported on restaurants finally taking noise seriously, and it opened with Untitled, the restaurant at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The room had every surface that makes a restaurant loud: glass walls, a concrete back wall, limestone floors, an open kitchen, and tables without tablecloths.
The design team, from Renzo Piano's studio working with Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group, covered the ceiling with BASWA Phon. Sound passes through the micro-porous marble finish and is converted to heat in the panel beneath. As the Times described it, diners could hear each other clearly while the music stayed in the background.
The article framed this as a shift: restaurants keeping hard, beautiful surfaces and still designing for conversation. That is the room BASWA acoustical plaster is built for, with a seamless ceiling that absorbs sound without changing how the space looks.
In the Press
The article described restaurant designers becoming more precise about sound. Their goal was a pocket of clear conversation at each table without losing the low hum of activity that makes a room feel alive. Architects told the Times that acoustics now come up at the start of a project, not after opening. The piece also surveyed other approaches across the city, from linen-covered ceiling panels to burlap and cedar walls to sound-absorbing layers under the floor. At Untitled, where the design called for keeping glass, stone, and concrete, the answer was the ceiling.
The System
BASWA Phon adheres to drywall, concrete, or existing plaster and finishes as a continuous plastered surface, with no grid or panel edges. That lets a hard-surfaced room keep its materials and still bring reverberation down. It comes in 30, 40, and 70 mm thicknesses, with NRC ratings from 0.80 (30 mm) to 1.00 (70 mm) depending on finish and thickness, and it carries a Class A fire rating per ASTM E84. [1]
For the full picture, including where sound builds in a restaurant, which BASWA system fits, and what to plan before you specify, read Restaurant Acoustics: A Guide to Acoustical Plaster.
Planning a restaurant or renovating one? Contact BASWA acoustic for system selection, samples, and a certified installer near your project.
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