The Perelman Performing Arts Center

Commercial

The Perelman Performing Arts Center

Architect

Rex

Stone

Luminati Marble

Location

New York, USA

Constructed In

2023

Scope of Work

Façade

A translucent marble cube located next to One World Trade Center.

The Perelman Performing Arts Center is a multipurpose performing arts centre located in the heart of Manhattan, NYC, exactly in the northeast corner of the World Trade Center complex.

Plans to build this Performing Arts Center go back to 2004 and were part of the large redevelopment plan for the WTC area that followed the 2001 September 11th attack.

In 2015, Joshua Ramus from REX Architecture NY was announced as design architect, and Davis Brody Bond as executive architect.

The building was projected into this very sensitive area of NYC through a unique and complex façade that simultaneously appears simple and timeless, it’s after all a 12,000 sqm cube that stands out in the northern edge of the WTC complex. The building was designed to become a beacon for the arts in lower Manhattan, offering a flexible theatre that could be combined into over 60 different configurations.

For REX founding principal Joshua Ramus, the most important aspect of the PAC’s design “was to create a concept that was simultaneously respectful yet managed to have an important identity that conveyed the building as the object signifying the restorative powers of art.” He noted that the scheme needed to be conscious of its context and possess a certain sober deference.

The most dramatic layer of this complex and unique building is its surface, a creamy, highly veined marble that fully covers the four equal faces of the facade. The challenge Joshua Ramus and his team presented to LSI didn’t seem complex, LSI should present stone options that could deliver very simple guidelines: translucid stone, amber background and vein range variation.