Diller Scofidio + Renfro has shared new photos of its just-opened Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The three-year, $110 million project culminated in an 84,000-square-foot multipurpose arts facility that houses a 400-seat proscenium theater, 200-seat studio space, and the relocated Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, which has garnered a reputation as one of the leading academic art museums in the country since first being founded in 1983.

“The new Prior Performing Arts Center is an uncommon commons,” DS+R partner-in-charge Charles Renfro describes the project. “The building is uniquely perched on a hill overlooking the campus and Worcester, yet straddles the intersection of multiple cross-campus paths. While its world-class facilities provide a singular new home for Holy Cross's performing arts students, its atrium invites the broader student body to participate in casual and unscripted creative activities. The building's dual identity is also expressed in its materials, which are tough and industrial without sacrificing warmth and comfort [...] one that puts intersectionality, inclusion, and interdisciplinarity at its heart.”

Conceived as an “incubator for multidisciplinary learning and creativity,” the intricate design of the Center mirrors the creative output of Holy Cross’ faculty, which currently includes former Guggenheim Fellows, a MacArthur Genius Award recipient, and three Grammy winners. 

Intersecting corten steel facades combine with a central recessed volume clad in glass fiber-reinforced concrete to conceal an interior program of four different pavilions oriented around an internal “Beehive” that serves as a “central connective tissue” to the rest of the building’s functional academic and performance spaces. 

DS+R says “the informal, hackable nature of the space turns it into a creative playground for both study and performance for all students irrespective of their majors.” 

The building includes a café and multimedia teaching spaces for different types of composition courses, sound recording, and video and film editing, in addition to collaborative work and multipurpose space and rehearsal areas. Conceptually, this is a mirror of the building's place at the “heart” of the campus. 

The site is completed by an external program that includes an amphitheater and meditative landscaped gardens sponsored by the Tony and Renee Marlon Foundation.

The 179-year-old liberal arts school is committed to centering the arts within its curriculum and sees this new building as a “physical manifestation” of its long-held educational philosophy. 

Holy Cross President Vincent Rougeau says it will “elevate our Jesuit tradition — fostering creativity and collaboration, communicating across barriers of language, class, and culture, and experiencing together the wonders of beauty, reflection, discovery, and discernment.”