Architects Chosen to Design WTC Performing Arts Center
Joshua Prince-Ramus, principal of REX, the firm chosen as the lead architects of the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, and a preliminary sketch of the center by Charcoalblue, a British theater consultant on the project. Photo: Mathias Vriens-McGrath
The Brooklyn-based firm REX, with its principal Joshua Prince-Ramus, has been selected as lead architect of the roughly 80,000-square-foot Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, with the firm of Davis Brody Bond acting as executive architect. The decision was formally announced on Friday by the center’s chairman, John Zuccotti, and its president, Maggie Boepple.
(UPDATE: Zuccotti died on Friday at age 78.)
“Throughout the architectural selection process, REX showed a deep understanding of the very specific needs of this complicated project.” Boepple said in a statement. “Joshua totally blew us away with his innovative ideas.”
The firm was one of three finalists that included Henning Larsen of Denmark and UNStudio from the Netherlands.
The announcement comes a week after the board of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. approved spending $10 million toward design of the building, to be constructed on the site of the current temporary PATH station.
Projects by REX include the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas; the Vakko Fashion Center and Power Media Center in Istanbul; and the Seattle Central Library. Davis Brody Bond is a 63-year-old firm behind the building designs of many prominent civic institutions, including the Sept. 11 Memorial Museum.
The architects join British-based theater consultants Charcoalblue and construction managers DBI Projects in transforming what has been a long-envisioned but financially clouded performance center into reality.
“It’s an amazing day,” said Community Board 1 chair Catherine McVay Hughes. “They actually have a team in place.”
The Performing Arts Center, now expected by its planners to open in 2019, is slated to show works of theater, dance, music, musical theater, opera, and film, and become the home of the Tribeca Film Festival.
According to an LMDC report, the current plan for the center calls for “two or possibly three theaters consisting of 600 and 200 seats or two theaters on the main floor with black box theaters above.”
Boepple let it be known more than a year ago that the center had dropped its original architect, Frank Gehry, citing cost concerns.
In order to go ahead with the project, the LMDC board had insisted in July that the center be built for no more than $200 million, about half of its originally projected cost. LMDC officials say they are now convinced that is possible and they are willing to commit half of the needed funds. The other half, approximately $100 million, must be raised privately by the center.