New York City’s $20 billion, 28-acre Hudson Yards project will feature some of the most advanced infrastructure technology to be found in any building complex in the country.
Among its innovations will be The Shed, a 170,000- to 200,000-sf, $425 million steel-and-glass retractable canopy, mounted on rails that allow the structure to expand and become an independent, multifaceted performance and arts space.
The Real Deal has called The Shed “The Batmobile of Buildings.” Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Rockwell Group, the six-story structure—once known as Culture Shed—is scheduled to open in 2019 (two years later than expected), just in time to host New York’s Fashion Week.
“It will be the world’s most flexible cultural institution,” says Dan Doctoroff, the former New York Deputy Mayor who is CEO of Sidewalk Labs, a Google-funded technology company that is moving into Hudson Yards and is focused on developing ways to improve city life. Doctoroff is also chairman of the Shed. He told Women’s Wear Daily earlier this year that the idea for The Shed “started when Diane von Furstenberg came to Mayor Bloomberg, me and Patti Harris [another deputy mayor] when we were in office in 2004, saying there is no home for fashion in New York.”
The Real Deal reports that technology will allow The Shed’s retractable canopy to open and close within 15 minutes, and transform from an open-air public space into an indoor venue. It is designed with 25,000 sf of museum-quality space, a 500-seat theater, event and rehearsal space, and an artist lab.
The New York Times reported last month that the nonprofit Shed has started programming some of its upcoming events, including the first of its commissions with conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, who will produce a new work to be unveiled at the Shed’s opening.
Shed Fly Through Animation from The Shed on Vimeo.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Biograph Theater
Located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, Victory Gardens Theater Company has welcomed up-and-coming playwrights for 33 years. In 2004, the company expanded its campus with the purchase of the Biograph Theater for its new main stage. Built in 1914, the theater was one of the city's oldest remaining neighborhood movie houses, and it was part of Chicago's gangster lore: in 1934, John Dillin...
| Aug 11, 2010
Top of the rock—Observation deck at Rockefeller Center
Opened in 1933, the observation deck at Rockefeller Center was designed to evoke the elegant promenades found on the period's luxury transatlantic liners—only with views of the city's skyline instead of the ocean. In 1986 this cultural landmark was closed to the public and sat unused for almost two decades.
| Aug 11, 2010
Putting the Metal to the Petal
The Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine was founded in 1985, but the organization didn't have a permanent home until May 2008. That's when the Michael Klahr Center, which houses the HHRC, opened on the Augusta campus of the University of Maine. The design, by Boston-based architects Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott, was selected from among more than 200 entries in a university-s...
| Aug 11, 2010
Jefferson Would Be Proud
The Virginia State Capitol Building—originally designed by Thomas Jefferson and almost as old as the nation itself—has proudly served as the oldest continuously used Capitol in the U.S. But more than two centuries of wear and tear put the historical landmark at the head of the line for restoration.
| Aug 11, 2010
Let There Be Daylight
The new public library in Champaign, Ill., is drawing 2,100 patrons a day, up from 1,600 in 2007. The 122,600-sf facility, which opened in January 2008, certainly benefits from amenities that the old 40,000-sf library didn't have—electronic check-in and check-out, new computers, an onsite coffeehouse.
| Aug 11, 2010
American Tobacco Project: Turning over a new leaf
As part of a major revitalization of downtown Durham, N.C., locally based Capitol Broadcasting Company decided to transform the American Tobacco Company's derelict 16-acre industrial plant, which symbolized the city for more than a century, into a lively and attractive mixed-use development. Although tearing down and rebuilding the property would have made more economic sense, the greater goal ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Alumni Gymnasium Renovation, Dartmouth College Hanover, N.H.
At a time when institutions of higher learning are spending tens of millions of dollars erecting massive, cutting-edge recreation and fitness centers, Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., decided to take a more modest, historical approach. Instead of building an ultra-grand new facility, the university chose to breathe new life into its landmark Alumni Gymnasium by transforming the outdated 99-y...
| Aug 11, 2010
Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design
When tasked with transforming an early 1920s Italian Renaissance bank building into a fully functional library for the Rhode Island School of Design, the Building Team for RISD's Fleet Library found itself at odds with the project's two main goals. On the one hand, the team would have to carefully restore and preserve the historic charm and ornate architectural details of the landmark space, d...
| Aug 11, 2010
Gold Award: The Lion House, Bronx Zoo Bronx, N.Y.
Astor Court sits at the heart of the 265-acre Bronx Zoo, and its six Beaux Arts buildings were constructed at the turn of the 20th century to house exotic animals from around the world. When the Lion House was built in 1903, the brick and limestone facility was considered state-of-the-art, but as standards of animal care advanced, the lions were moved into a more natural setting, and the Lion H...
| Aug 11, 2010
The pride of Pasadena
As a shining symbol of civic pride in Los Angeles County, Pasadena City Hall stood as the stately centerpiece of Pasadena's Civic Center since 1927. To the casual observer, the rectangular edifice, designed by San Francisco Classicists John Bakewell, Jr., and Arthur Brown, Jr., appeared to be aging gracefully.
