Solid Foundation

Natan Bibliowicz's sketches document the building of and people behind the Joan Weill Center for Dance in New York

Annie Block -- Interior Design, 5/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Pictures often tell a storybetter than words. "Designing a building in New York is an exhilarating experience. It's difficult, if not impossible, to describe," says Natan Bibliowicz, principal of Iu + Bibliowicz Architects, the firm responsible for the 77,000-square-foot Joan Weill Center for Dance. The eight-story structure, which contains performance and practice space for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, took 18 months to build. "It was a labor of love," 'continues the architect, whose participation in the project totaled seven years. "I didn't want to miss any part of it." That includes nearly every person involved—from excavator to finance director.

During his daily visits to the site, Bibliowicz took digital photographs of the construction progress and the team. At night, at home with his family, he sketched the images, slightly abstracted, in charcoal and pastels, mediums he's used since acquiring his passion for drawing as a young boy.

From the project's groundbreaking to its completion, Bibliowicz generated 168 sketches, all of which he plans to compile into a book. Until then, he has given a copy of each portrait to its subject as a token of gratitude. "They're wonderful people," he says. "They built Ailey."

The crane for the residential building that went up across New York's West 55th Street during the construction of the Joan Weill Center for Dance by Iu + Bibliowicz Architects.

Opposite, clockwise from top left: One of Bibliowicz's favorite sketches, the Hitachi drill breaking ground on the southwest corner of the site. A welder inserting steel support plates in the foundation wall. The wheel of the Hitachi with the barricade in the background. A foundation contractor setting up shoring in a 15-foot-deep pit.

Above: The excavated site—a 14,100-square-foot footprint—looking north. The series of horizontal black dots along the foundation wall are the work of the welder on the opposing page.

Left: A foundation contractor on the north foundation wall, approximately 25 feet high, working on the rebar. Right: The center's steel structure rising above ground; the project is a year from completion.