A Cultural Cornerstone
The vision for the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) began over 20 years ago as a cultural cornerstone within the city's master plan to rebuild the World Trade Center. Now fully realized, PAC NYC is a dynamic home for the arts, featuring theater, dance, music, opera, and film.
To accommodate these diverse artistic programs, the building offers radical flexibility. Designed by REX, the three main auditoria can transform into ten different proportions that collectively adopt more than 60 stage-audience arrangements with capacities ranging from 90 to 950 seats.
Real Life Musical Chairs
With such an adaptive space comes a unique challenge: how do you ensure a consistent guest journey when the journey itself is ever-changing? Our solution was to devise a wayfinding strategy and signage program that offers both permanent and flexible elements to accommodate the ever-changing circulation paths.
Our other challenge was to ensure the Center felt inviting; to help people understand that the space is alive all day as a place to celebrate, relax, and gather. The stunning cube-shaped building is wrapped in a marble façade that allows light to radiate in during the day and glow out during the evening. Visitors ascend a large staircase from street-level and enter into the lobby, which serves as a “living room” for Lower Manhattan, complete with a lounge, restaurant, and a stage for live performances.
Digital Breadcrumbs
Digital displays play a key role to help guests navigate. We designed installations that were carefully placed in the lobby and surrounding areas to greet visitors, promote the day’s performance, and provide directional prompts.
Ticket to Clarity
Wayfinding is about more than just signs: it’s about the complete journey a person takes, even when it begins away from the venue. This PAC journey starts with online research before purchasing a ticket. We worked with PAC NYC to ensure that tickets communicate the stair/elevator letter and door number ideal for that person’s journey.
Bold, illuminated signage responded best to PAC NYC. Because of the vertical architectural layout, we visually stacked the floor levels at each elevator, added playful graphics prompting people to take the stairs, and created meandering arrows that wrapped around corners to encourage exploration and orientation. The theater doors are prominently identified by large illuminated numbers that can be turned off when the door is not accessible given the theater configuration.
We were honored to collaborate on this meaningful final public cornerstone of the rebuilt World Trade Center site. As the renowned architectural critic of the New York Times states, “Lower Manhattan could have hardly asked for a more spectacular work of public architecture."
