page_title: El Internacional (New York City)
section_title: Interior
hierarchical_section_title: El Internacional (New York City) / Description / Interior
caption_attribution_description: English: El Internacional Tapas Bar &amp; Restaurant, art project led by Antoni Miralda and Montse Guillén during 1980s in TriBeCa, NY
context_page_description: El Internacional Tapas Bar & Restaurant was conceived as an artistic project and social experiment, carried out between 1984 and 1986 by artist Antoni Miralda and chef Montse Guillén in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was an initiative which blended contemporary art and cuisine. The restaurant's became an iconic symbol of the New York scene of the 80s. The project engaged food, sensorial experiences and installation art as vehicles and rituals for transmitting and subverting traditions and blending social practices of the time. El Internacional was seen as a point of convergence for the artistic community, and, at the same time, as a real place that engaged neighbors and celebrities alike in its culinary inventions and exotic allure. El Internacional was an ongoing process of the almost 3-year day-by-day creation of a work of installation and performance art.
  El Internacional was a team project and a collective work of art. The space framed the experience and interactions around food as clients ended up being participants in a multi-layered experience few had imagined.
context_section_description: The façade was redrawn on the existing one, like an optical illusion, and the building underwent a total transfiguration without erasing its previous architecture. Beneath the new façade, the camouflaged name of Teddy’s was still present. From the street, the restaurant appeared to be like an enigmatic construction site/work of art causing unexpected reactions from the onlookers. The first thing visitors saw when arriving at the Terraza Sol y Sombra that had cans of beverages encrusted into the sidewalk (Coca-Cola and other soda cans) like relics or fossils, and a window where the Video Menu was shown on a monitor that presented the dishes, drinks and experiences available inside. Through the front window one could see the bar, and at the end, the kitchen window, this being one of the first open kitchens that existed in the city. Patrons got to the restaurant through the Flag Entrance, a floor comprising flags from numerous countries symbolizing and celebrating the diversity of New York, and then on to the Columbus Trophy Bar, with the presence of the Columbus Column of Barcelona on the bottles, and the famous cocktail Blue Margarita created at El Internacional.
  The tour continued through the 4 theme rooms. First was the Turquoise Dining Room which incorporated a wall of tiles, white, turquoise and gilt from the 20s found during refurbishment. After that was the Carnation Room, a dining room in which the walls became an atlas of kisses where the diners would make the place their own by writing comments on the walls and leaving their kisses. Then, the Sentimental Room had the video installation of images of the celebrities that frequented the golden era of Teddy’s – Elizabeth Taylor, Groucho Marx, Anthony Quinn, and Sophia Loren, among others. Finally, the Marina Room where four dried and salted cods presided over the dining room from the floor and the Sweet Ceiling was decorated with meringue-like stalactites. The wall that separated the Turquoise and Carnation Rooms was an aquarium from which visitors could see the Mermaid - brought back by Miralda from Bahia, Brazil - representing Yemoja, the goddess patron of the ocean and of motherhood.
  Other objects such as the Lobster Dream Lamp, the Matador Candelabra, the Black World Expresso, the Barcelona-New York Wedding Cake and the Liberty Crown Brochette marked the restaurant as a cultural destination, unusual museum, and adventurous cuisine and lively social spectacle.
caption: The carpet Flag Entrance, on the way of the bar
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