佩雷尔曼表演艺术中心丨美国纽约丨REX ARCHITECTURE

Architects:REX ARCHITECTURE

Area:129000ft²

Year:2023

Photographs:Iwan Baan

Acousticians:Threshold Acoustics

Structural Engineers:Magnusson Klemencic Associates

Founding Principal:Joshua Ramus

Personel: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

Civil Engineering:Philip Habib

Façade Consultants:FRONT

Structural Consulting Engineers:Silman

Interior Architects:Rockwell Group

Signage Designer:Entro

Lighting Design Consultants:Tillotson

Construction Managers:Sciame Construction

Project Managers:DBI

Sustainability Consultants:Atelier Ten

Audiovisual:Boyce Nemec

Commissioning Consultants:Cosentini

Cost Management Consultant:Cost+Plus

Security Design Consultant:Ducibella Venter & Santore

Stone Consultants:FMDC

Vertical Transportation Consultants:Jenkins & Huntington

Concrete Consultant:Reg Hough Associates

Security Consultants:Risk & Protection Consulting Services

Wind Engineer:RWDI

Waterproofing:WJE Engineers

City:New York

Country:United States

Text description provided by the architects. Adjacent to New York City’s most hallowed site, the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) is the cultural keystone and final public element in the World Trade Center master plan, embracing the restorative power of art as a counterpoint to the site’s commemorative import. A producing house for theater, music, dance, opera, and film, PAC NYC pioneers new forms of theatrical adaptability to amplify the creativity of its artists and empower directors to surprise patrons with new processions and viewing experiences upon each visit.

The building’s pure form—rotated and elevated to accommodate complex below- and at-grade constraints—is wrapped in translucent marble. By day, the volume is an elegant, bookmatched stone edifice acknowledging the solemnity of the 9/11 Memorial across the street. By night, this monolith dematerializes, subtly revealing PAC NYC’s creative energy inside.

A performance instrument, PAC NYC’s suite of theaters and scene docks can combine into ten (10) proportions and transform into sixty-two (62) stage-audience configurations, from 90 to 950 seats. Creative teams can transmute the spaces to fulfill their desired artistic expressions and audience experiences using a toolkit of automated and manual technical systems. They include four acoustic “guillotine” walls; four movable seating towers (for courtyard, horseshoe, in-the-round, thrust, and other formats); a two-tiered catwalk and walkable grid system; 56 “spiralifts” to mold the theaters’ floor into manifold geometries; and several removable catwalks and audience balconies. F

urther, a zone of mutability around the theaters—composed of eight acoustic doors, the cruciform of scene docks/assemblies, and a peripheral circulation loop—allows any of these areas to be allocated as front- or back-of-house and form unexpected lobbies and performance antechambers. Four elevator/stair couplets can also be used individually or in combination, creating diverse circulation sequences from the lobby. As a result of this immense flexibility, PAC NYC is a constant source of surprise for patrons, a “Mystery Box” whose experiences are scripted entirely by each director’s imagination.

To provide exceptional room acoustics within a radically flexible environment (with variable auditorium sizes and proportions; manifold possible stage and audience locations; and voices and instruments, both amplified and unamplified), the theaters are designed to aurally resemble a boundaryless, diffuse “forest clearing.” A perimeter wall of trees—with its random solids and voids—retains acoustic energy without imprinting a defined auditory signature: the ideal environment into which specific soundscapes can be tailored for each performance configuration.

To emulate a forest clearing’s geometry, a system of three planks—with one, two, and three “scoops”—were cost-effectively ripped out of walnut using crown molding knives. Because the scoops at the edge of each plank are of consistent radius, the planks always marry regardless of their arrangement or rotation. This enables 258 permutations of plank combinations. The plank geometries, their arrangements, and the voids between them were iteratively engineered and tested by the acoustician and architect to form an effectively random surface in a cost-effective and standardized manner.

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Address:New York, United States