Archinect - News

Go inside The Shed’s short-lived Sonic Sphere installation with The New York Times

2023-07-06T17:26:00-04:00

“It’s about a change in consciousness that leaves a memory,” [Ed] Cooke said of the project. “Can people have an experience where they touch some new territory of consciousness, not in a way that is like an altered state, but one that actually leaves a trace?”

The 50-ton space, which is suspended some 34 feet above the ground, has a capacity of 250 people and was promoted by co-designer Merijn Royaards as a “sensory laboratory that [...] bends time, expands consciousness, and punctures our perception of reality” at the project’s announcement in early May.

Video courtesy of The Shed/YouTube

Its design was supposedly inspired by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kugelauditorium from 1970 and includes a JBL sound system for special 45-minute ticketed performances. The venue closes on July 30th, with a return to New York planned for next year. Speaking of their intent for the $2 million project, Royaards' colleague Ed Cooke told the Times, “We want to give [people] something magical.”

The Shed debuts Sonic Sphere suspended musical feature

2023-05-09T13:17:00-04:00

The Shed at New York City’s Hudson Yards has unveiled plans for a new, temporary 65-foot spherical concert hall feature to be placed inside the arts venue’s McCourt performance space this summer.

The space is the product of architectural designers Ed Cooke, Merijn Royaards, and Nicholas Christie and has previously been enacted at the 2022 Burning Man festival and ten other venues.

Lounge-type seating is combined with a listening platform that's suspended 34 feet off the ground. Standing sections and a netted center complete the spatial design, with a capacity for 250 persons, a JBL sound system, and lighting design from Polina Zakh. The space was supposedly inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 1970 Kugelauditorium for the World Expo in Japan that same year.

Royaards explains: “My first experience of clubbing was during a cold winter in early ’90s Rotterdam. The interference patterns of visual, sonic, and kinetic waveform transmissions that flooded the dance floor and enveloped me we...

France debuts 'Ball Theater' pavilion installation ahead of the 2023 Venice Biennale

2023-04-27T13:09:00-04:00

France’s pavilion to the 18th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale will feature an immersive interchange of identity and emotion inspired by ballroom dances and human rituals of experience-based social cohesion.

French studio Muoto partnered with scenographers Georgi Stanishev and Clémence La Sagna for the design of Ball Theater, which they say ties into curator Lesley Lokko’s thematic look to the future where “architecture is no longer to represent or to be represented as an image.”

Image courtesy of Muoto, Georgi Stanishev and Clémence La Sagna

Their project for the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs takes the form of a semi-spherical intervention that’s configurable for different immersive experiences all based around Ball Theater’s usage as a forum for artistic performances and civic inquiry.

Image courtesy of Muoto, Georgi Stanishev and Clémence La Sagna

Special events will be held in its hollowed chamber space, taking...

Refik Anadol repurposes his AI data sculpture 'Machine Hallucinations' for 2023 Grammy Awards stage

2023-02-07T18:54:00-05:00

Istanbul-born media artist and design innovator Refik Anadol has quickly become a household name with his mind-bending, data-driven art. This year, Anadol continues to push what's possible during his visual backdrop debut at the 65th annual Grammy Awards.

"The collaboration with the Recording Academy started almost six months ago with an exciting call from the designers who are in charge of the stage design and the whole flow of the ceremony," Anadol shared with Archinect.

Anadol's work can be seen in the background illuminating the space during the award's premier ceremony speech by the Recording Academy's CEO Harvey Mason Jr. Video courtesy of Recording Academy/Grammys.

Along with the event's lead production designer Julio Himede, the art direction team, and electronic graphics expert Hugh Grew, Anadol's distinct data-generated paintings from his AI artwork and NFT collections, Machine Hallucinations — Nature Dreams and Machine Hallucinations: Space Metaverse, could be spotted ...

A look at the process behind David Korins' dazzling set design for the 94th Academy Awards

2022-03-29T20:43:00-04:00

As the 94th Academy Awards returned to Los Angeles' famed Dolby Theatre for the first time since 2020, creative director David Korins took center stage with what is now his second design for perhaps the most important part of Hollywood's annual celebration of film culture and the cinematic arts.

Artist rendering of the concept for the Act 1 "Cascading Spiral" stage. Image courtesy David Korins Design.

From concept to implementation, the overall project took four months to complete, finally offering the awards’ 16.6 million viewers a sequel to his inclusivity-themed 2019 effort based upon subjects like the future and communities that can imbue each member with the ability to shine on their own individual stage.

Act 1: Cascading Spiral. Image courtesy David Korins Design.

Act 2: The Wave. Image courtesy David Korins Design.

Act 3: Crystals. Image courtesy David Korins Design.

Act 4: Triangle. Image courtesy David Korins Design.

The design incorporated some 90,000 individual Swarovski cry...

Glass box theater? Designers like Es Devlin are making the Fourth Wall out of something new

2021-10-21T17:59:00-04:00

Even before Covid-19, many ambitious productions had been taking place not in the three-sided black boxes that defined the experimental zest and emerging punk of the late 1970s, or […] theater-in-the-round pioneered in ancient Greece and Rome, but in elaborately engineered glass cubes that evoke the International Style’s high Modernism and the minimalist penthouses of the contemporary metropolis. There would not seem to be a more flagrant violation of dramatic immediacy.

Glass cube sets from Miriam Buether, artist Todd Knope, and Expo 2020 Dubai British Pavillion designer Es Devlin have been popular among directors like Sam Mendes. One of Devlin's previous designs was based on a temporary Rachel Whitehead installation in East London from 1993. The artist's work will take center stage once again with the reopening of Mendes' The Lehman Trilogy, which plays at New York's Nederlander Theater until January 2nd.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Lehman Trilogy on Broadway (@lehmantrilogybway)

“There’s a message embedded in a single room,” the three-time Olivier Award winner told the Times, “that architecture itself is the vessel through which history — whether intimate or monumental — is enacted. Glass helps you make that message explicit: A room is more than just a passive container. It remembers life.”

10 spectacular performance spaces for your Friday inspiration

2020-01-10T08:00:00-05:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the NEW board Performance Spaces.

↑ Mariinsky II Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia by Diamond Schmitt Architects with KP ViPS

↑ Palais de la Musique et des Congrès Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France by dietrich.untertrifaller architekten

↑ BLUEBARN Theatre in Omaha, NE by Actual Architecture Co.; Photo: Paul Crosby

↑ Shaftesbury Theatre in London, UK by Bennetts Associates; Photo: Peter Cook

↑ The Theatre School, DePaul University in Chicago, IL by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects; Photo: Jeff Goldberg/Esto

↑ Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, CA by SPF:architects

↑ Theatre Agora in Lelystad, The Netherlands by UNSt...

Stage design firm aids Queen + Adam Lambert in U.S. tour

2019-08-21T20:15:00-04:00

The tour, which plays New Orleans on Aug. 20 and Atlanta on Aug. 22, touched down at the L.A. Forum in July, bringing with it a marvel of technical advances that mix video imagery, lighting and kinetic sculptures to create a three-act narrative.

Stufish Entertainment Architects was "founded in 1994 by rock show visionary Mark Fisher," who was an innovator in stage design. "Fisher, who died in 2013, created the set for several Pink Floyd shows, including The Wall, as well as tours by the Rolling Stones, Madonna and Lady Gaga, among many others," writes Variety.

The current team at Stufish has been on four tours in five years with Queen + Adam Lambert, and continue to work to "create mesmerizing effects" through the use of groundbreaking technologies. After the release of the 2018 film, Bohemian Rhapsody, the band began to attract a younger audience "with video-game expectations," said Ric Lipson, a partner at Stufish.

With no wheelchair ramp, Tony Award winner Ali Stroker couldn't join her cast and crew on stage to celebrate their win

2019-06-12T15:15:00-04:00

After her win, Stroker spoke to reporters about the lack of accessibility on Broadway. She said that most of the theaters’ backstage areas are not generally accessible to performers with disabilities. “I would ask theater owners and producers to really look into how they can begin to make the backstage accessible so that performers with disabilities can get around,” she said, per The New York Times.

Ali Stroker became the first person to use a wheelchair to win a Tony Award during Sunday night's glitzy ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Her historical win — which was for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in the acclaimed Broadway revival of “Oklahoma!” — is a milestone in bolstering the representation of people with disabilities.

However, there was an obstacle for Stroker during the ceremony that is all too common for people with disabilities in everyday life: No ramp had been built to connect the audience seating area to the main stage. In one instance, she had to wait in the wings on stage in case she won in her individual category. Then when “Oklahoma!” won Best Revival of a Musical, Stroker could not join the rest of the cast and crew on stage to accept the award. While Stroker generally had a celebratory night, that moment was yet another disheartening reminder that basic universal accessibility needs are still easily overlooked.

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Pickathon Festival stage, designed by PSU students, will be turned into transitional housing when the music stops

2017-08-04T20:10:00-04:00

Launched in 1999, the inaugural Pickathon Music Festival was not so much a festival, but rather a small fundraiser for KBOO—a non-profit community radio station. Held in the woods nearby Portland, Oregon, the now annual summer event has grown into a sellout affair with lineups including Beach House, Angel Olsen, and Mac DeMarco. Though the festival has grown, the three-day event nicknamed "Portland's littlest big festival" has maintained its grassroots nature and continues to set itself apart from its festival competitors.

For starters, rather than only booking acts that have a big draw, the festival runners make a point of introducing their audience to new acts like Israeli pop star group A-WA or soul icon Charles Bradley. In addition, all artists at the festival play at least twice so audiences have multiple chances to see their acts. The festival has largely foregone corporate sponsorship with exceptions for companies like Kleen Kanteen, a reusable water bottle company, that fit ...

One-to-One #43 with George Tsypin, stage designer behind the 2014 Sochi Olympics' opening ceremony and "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark"

2016-10-24T15:29:00-04:00

You probably don’t recognize George Tsypin’s name, but you’re almost certainly familiar with his projects. After training as an architect in Moscow, Tsypin moved to New York to study theater design, and it’s now safe to say millions upon millions of people have seen his work. He’s designed stage sets for the MTV VMA’s, operas, Broadway plays, and the 2014 Winter Olympics’ Opening Ceremony at Sochi, among many others.

Tsypin's work is now captured in GEORGE TSYPIN OPERA FACTORY: Invisible City, released on October 18 by Princeton Architectural Press. We spoke about designing for theatrical and mass media performances, and how his architectural training grounds his practice.

Our interview begins with Tsypin's account of working in 5Pointz, the infamous graffiti building in Long Island City. Special thanks to Princeton Architectural Press for helping coordinate the interview.

Listen to One-to-One #43 with George Tsypin:

iTunes: Click here to listen and subscribe to the new "Archinect Sessi...