The Perelman Performing Arts Center at The World Trade Center | REX Architecture

In 2015, following a 2014 international design competition, architecture firm REX was commissioned to design the Perelman Performing Arts Center, a new, state-of-the- art, not-for-profit performing arts center.

REX’s 129,000-square-foot design, created in close collaboration with theater consultant Charcoalblue (which developed the initial brief), and executive architect Davis Brody Bond, is inspired by PAC NYC’s artistic mission. The building will provide unparalleled theatrical flexibility, foster powerful artistic expression, and deliver technologically advanced and digitally connected spaces for creative performance.

The building’s marble facade creates an elegant monolith by day; by night, the solid façade dematerializes and glows warmly from within. This transformative façade is composed of translucent, veined Portuguese marble (Estremoz Luminati) laminated on both sides with glass and fabricated into integrated, insulated panels. The stone- glass panels allow daylight to penetrate while upholding energy performance and protecting the marble from extreme weather conditions.

PAC NYC includes three flexible venues of different sizes. Using large movable walls and adjacent scene docks, these theaters can be combined or transformed into ten proportions and more than five dozen configurations. Physically and acoustically, the performance spaces can accommodate a multiplicity of artistic disciplines (from intimate drama to dance to opera), creative visions, and experiences. A toolkit of automated and manual technical systems enables creative teams to transform the spaces to fulfill their desired artistic expressions and audience experiences.

Organization

To accommodate the program on the tight, complex site, REX organized PAC NYC onto three main levels, with the layout and character of the Theater Level’s performance spaces driving the design.

The three main levels, from bottom to top, are:

Public Level: Includes a lobby that will serve as a “living room” for Lower Manhattan, with a lobby stage for free programming, and a Marcus Samuelsson restaurant, bar, and exterior terrace. Restaurant and lobby interiors were designed by Rockwell Group.

Artists Level: Contains all artist support areas, including dressing rooms and the “trap,” housing the mechanical lifts beneath, and serving, the Zuccotti Theater.

Theater Level: Provides three performance spaces—the John E. Zuccotti Theater (seating up to 450 people), the Mike Nichols Theater (seating up to 250), and the Doris Duke Foundation Theater (seating up to 99)—as well as two scene docks and a rehearsal lounge. The three performance spaces can be used concurrently or in combination and can be reconfigured into more than ten proportions and more than sixty stage-audience arrangements, ranging from 90 to 950 seats.

Design Highlights

Façade

REX designed the façade, in collaboration with façade consultant Front, out of 1/2” (12 mm) translucent marble slabs sandwiched between glass and integrated into insulated glass units (“IGUs”). Each of the 4,896 IGUs measures 5 x 3 feet and weighs 295 pounds.
Through a process called “book matching,” REX composed the panels so that the marble veining forms a biaxially symmetric pattern, which repeats on all four sides of the building.
During the day, sunlight passes through the façade, imparting the amber glow of the marble onto the interior. At night, this amber glow is reversed as the façade is lit from within.
Polished aluminum LED pendants light the perimeter walkways from top to bottom, illuminating the building’s exterior from within while providing house lighting for theatergoers. REX and the lighting design consultant Tillotson Design Associates collaborated on the building’s illumination.

Theaters
REX collaborated with Charcoalblue to design PAC NYC’s performance spaces.
Four massive vertically sliding (“guillotine”) walls (two at 46 tons each and two at 23 tons each) can be raised or lowered to separate or combine the performance spaces while maintaining acoustical separation. Configurations of seating and stage areas within each theater can be changed using a combination of mechanical and manual systems.
Movable seating towers in the Zuccotti Theater enable a range of stage formats from Courtyard and Horseshoe to Theater-In-the-Round and Thrust arrangements.
A two-level system consisting of interwoven catwalks and walkable grids allows for a variety of theatrical rigging overhead to support multiple stage configurations.
The Zuccotti Theater’s automation includes fifty-six Gala Spiralifts located in the trap which allow the space to transform amongst the different seating and stage configurations.

The Nichols Theater’s fully removable catwalks and demountable audience balcony allow this venue to flex from a stand-alone performance space, to a stage and backstage area for PAC NYC’s largest formats.
Room acoustics, designed by REX in collaboration with acousticians Threshold Acoustics, are designed to create a boundaryless, diffuse “forest clearing” experience where specific acoustic signatures can be created in alignment with the performance configuration.
The three theaters float independently from each other and the rest of the building on foot-thick rubber pads. The pads acoustically isolate the theaters from each other, allowing simultaneous performances, while protecting them from vibration caused by the PATH train tracks and subway lines below.

Restaurant / Lobby
Rockwell Group was engaged to design the interiors of PAC NYC’s lobby, restaurant, lounge, bar, and outdoor terrace.
Rockwell Group’s design was driven by the idea of creating a warm and welcoming arrival experience for guests, giving a hint of the experiences to come from the street level. Because the building is an elevated, monolithic form, a dynamic, glowing lobby ceiling can be seen from the street, like signage; the interior becomes invitation, architecture, wayfinding, and lighting in one.
The built-in stage in the southern end of the lobby offers an area for casual performances throughout the day, including seating that varies in height and two custom, modular sofas that frame the space in the rear and shield from the central pathway. When the stage is not hosting performances, it transitions into additional lounge seating.
The welcoming restaurant, helmed by chef Marcus Samuelsson, is adjacent to the lobby. Transparent glass at the restaurant’s northern wall gives glimpses of the outdoor terrace.

*** 

THE PERELMAN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
New York, New York

KEY AWARDS Society of American Registered Architects New York (SARA), Special Award for Innovation in Cultural Architecture, 2022; American Institute of Architects New York, Honor Award in Projects, 2022; The Chicago Athenaeum American Architectural Award, 2021; Architizer A+ Awards, Winner in the Unbuilt Cultural Category, 2019; German Design Award, Special Mention in Architecture Category, 2018; Architect’s Newspaper, Best of Design Award in Civic Category, 2017; Architect, Progressive Architecture Award, 2016; World Architecture News, Civic Buildings Award, 2016
CLIENT Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center
PROGRAM Performing arts center, including three auditoria (nominally 450-, 250-, and 99-person) which can combine to form seven additional room proportions, and a rehearsal room, all ten of which can collectively adopt more than sixty stage-audience configurations (ranging from 50 to 950 seats); flexible front- and back-of-house circulation that can create diverse patron entry/intermission/exit processions; and (A-Z) offices, performer support spaces, and restaurant/bar
AREA 12,000 m² (129,000 sf)
SUSTAINABILITY LEED Silver
COST $500 million
STATUS Invited competition 2014; first prize 2015; commenced construction 2018; opening 2023
DESIGN ARCHITECT REX
PERSONNEL Dylan Bachar, Wanjiao Chen, Adam Chizmar (PL), Maur Dessauvage (PL), Nazli Ergani, Alysen Hiller Fiore (PL), Sebastian Hofmeister, James Killeavy, Claire Kuang, Kirby Liu, Weronika Marciniak, Joshua Ramus, Raul Rodriguez, Emma Silverblatt, John Sng, Vaidotas Vaiciulis, Xuancheng Zhu
COMPETITION TEAM Giannantonio Bongiorno, Adam Chizmar (PL), Alberto Cumerlato, Mahasti Fakourbayat, Alysen Hiller Fiore (PL), Gabriel Jewell-Vitale, Min Kim, Dominyka Mineikyte, Elizabeth Nichols, Joshua Ramus, Raúl Rodríguez García, Michal Sapko, Emma Silverblatt, Elina Spruza Chizmar, Michele Tonizzo, Vaidotas Vaiciulis, Michael Volk, Cristina Webb
EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT Davis Brody Bond
CONSULTANTS Arup, Atelier Ten, CCI, Charcoalblue, Cost Plus, Ducibella Venter & Santore, Entro, Front, Jaros Baum & Bolles, Jenkins & Huntington, Magnusson Klemencic, Rockwell Group, RWDI, Silman, Thornton Tomasetti / Weidlinger, Threshold, Tillotson, Wilson Ihrig
CONTRACTOR Sciame