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Revealing Movement pix

Passersby get a glimpse of Alvin Ailey dancers in their glass-fronted New York operations by Iu + Bibliowicz Architects

Fred A. Bernstein -- Interior Design, 5/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

The eight-story Joan Weill Center for Dance in New York, by Iu + Bibliowicz Architects, contains offices and studios for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. On the roof, mechanicals are hidden behind Teflon screens, which recall the drapery used in Alvin Ailey's signature dance, Revelations. Photography: Archphoto.

A photograph by Jack Mitchell of Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison was translated into a mosaic-tile mural for the fifth-floor lounge.

Iu + Bibliowicz furnished the main lobby with Maya Lin's cement Stones seats.

A window displaying items from the Ailey boutique is built into a mahogany wall.

Seating in the basement theater retracts to form one large or two small studios.

Andrew Eccles's mural-size banner of Ailey dancers enlivens the basement lobby.

Dance students practice in the sixth-floor studio, where mirror walls reflect the neighborhood. The floor is composed of yellow Southern pine mounted on rubber supports.

The locker room is in the basement.

The student lounge with Baba bar stools by Sergio Mian.

Scot Laughton's Canal bench provides seating in the terrazzo-floored basement reception area.

The curtain wall is aluminum-framed glass panels.

The theater's polypropylene and steel collapsible seats.

Fluorescents up-light the acoustical-tiled studio ceilings.

The center was named after board of trustees chair Joan Weill; photography: Archphoto.

The video-watching nook enclosed by acrylic panels.

Maple dance bars surround each studio.

Ethospace System workstations appoint the office areas.

The nook is located within the lounge on the fifth floor. Iu + Bibliowicz bolted the acrylic panels to a plywood frame.

Gijs Papavoine sofas in the fifth-floor lounge, used by the senior company members, are covered in striped Gore-backed cotton polyester, chosen for its ability to resist perspiration stains.

The Alvin Ailey stamp, issued in 2004 and blown up to poster size, dominates the fourth-floor conference room with a table by Charles and Ray Eames.

The sixth-floor lounge features a trio of archival photographs, Mark Kapka chairs, a George Nelson table, and a cork floor.
PROJECT TEAM: ARNO ADKINS; JIM CHRISTERSON; KATIE MICHAEL; DARIN GREGORY REYNOLDS; EDWARD SHIM. CURTAIN WALL (EXTERIOR): WAUSAU WINDOW WALL SYSTEMS. SCREENS (ROOF), COUNTER (STUDENT LOUNGE): DUPONT. MURAL (FIFTH-FLOOR LOUNGE): BISAZZA. SEATING (GROUND-FLOOR LOBBY), TASK CHAIR (WORK AREA), BENCH FABRIC (BASEMENT LOBBY, NOOK), RED CHAIR (FIFTH-FLOOR LOUNGE): KNOLL. BANNER (GROUND-FLOOR LOBBY): OBERLANDER DESIGN. LIGHTING: LIGHTOLIER. DISPLAY SYSTEM (STORE): MARLITE; VISPLAY (PEG-BOARD). SEATS (THEATER): IRWIN TELESCOPIC SEATING COMPANY. LIGHTING: SE-LUX. LAMP (BASEMENT LOBBY): FLOS. STAIR: CASTCON-STONE (CONCRETE), HAYWOOD-BERK FLOOR COMPANY (MAPLE). FLOOR (STUDIOS): STAGESTEP. LIGHTING: ZUMTOBEL STAFF LIGHTING. CEILING: ECOPHON. FLOOR, BENCHES (LOCKER ROOM): AMERICAN OLEAN. LIGHTING: MARK ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING. STOOLS (STUDENT LOUNGE): THROUGH DESIGN WITHIN REACH. CHAIRS: KARTELL. TABLES: PANELITE. WORKSTATION (WORK AREA), TABLES (OFFICE, NOOK, LOUNGES, CONFERENCE ROOM): HERMAN MILLER. CEILING TILE, GRID (WORK AREA): ARMSTRONG. GUEST CHAIRS (OFFICE): BERNHARDT. BENCH (BASEMENT LOBBY), CHAIRS (CONFERENCE ROOM, SIXTH-FLOOR LOUNGE): KEILHAUER. POUFS (NOOK, FIFTH-FLOOR LOUNGE): BALERI ITALIA. TV (NOOK): SONY. CHAIR FABRIC (FIFTH-FLOOR LOUNGE): MAHARAM. SOFAS: MONTIS. SOFA FABRIC (FIFTH-FLOOR LOUNGE), CHAIR FABRIC (SIXTH-FLOOR LOUNGE): UNIKA VAEV. FLOORS: GENERAL POLYMERS (TERRAZZO), WICANDERS (CORK). CARPET: INTERFACE. PAINT: BENJAMIN MOORE CO. MILLWORK: TATCO INSTALLATIONS. SIGNAGE: DESIGN 360. CONSULTANTS: CERAMI ASSOCIATES (ACOUSTICAL, AUDIO-VISUAL), FISHER DACHS ASSOCIATES (THEATRICAL DESIGN), JAROS BAUM BOLLES (LIGHTING). CIVIL ENGINEER: LANGAN ENGINEERING AND ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES. STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: GILSANZ MURRAY STEFICEK. CONSTRUCTION MANAGER: TISHMAN CONSTRUCTION CORP.

For more than 40 years, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was like many New York residents: always renting, never able to buy. So when the company moved this year into its first permanent home, the Joan Weill Center for Dance, it wasn't just a practical milestone, but a symbolic one, too. "Having a building," says Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison, "conveys stability and strength." At the same time, the company's mission is to bring dance to the community. Thus, it was important to the Ailey that its new neighbors be able to see the creative activity going on in the eight-story center's 12 studios.

To the building's architects, Carolyn Iu and Natan Bibliowicz, those seemingly opposing goals—solidity and transparency—were powerful generators of form. Red brick, a common material in the largely residential neighborhood, encloses the core mechanical and circulation spaces, which wrap around the north and west sides of the building. Projecting from the hefty L-shape core are layers of glass-walled dance studios, which appear to float without obvious means of support, just like Ailey dancers in performance. Passersby see bodies in motion; dancers see midtown New York. And, thankfully, the view doesn't distract them. "They tell me that seeing skyscrapers from the windows makes them stand up straighter," says Bibliowicz.

Iu and Bibliowicz, principals in their namesake firm, are best known for designing Times Square's Virgin Megastore, which is roughly the same size as the 77,000-square-foot Ailey building but mostly underground. Only two levels of the dance center are below grade; the six top floors command the street with a crystalline geometry that's as pale as an ice cube, though not nearly as chilly. Light permeates the building; even the circulation core has windows, turning what could have been a dark scissor stair into a pleasantly airy route from floor to floor. The architects gave the extra-wide concrete steps a smooth finish, since dancers move around the building shoeless.

The center accommodates approximately 1,000 dancers with its two Ailey dance companies, the Ailey school, and numerous public dance classes. The steady stream of traffic passes through a lobby that's a virtual town square complete with Maya Lin Stones seating, a dance-accessories shop, and a monumental ' photographic banner of company founder Alvin Ailey (who died in 1989) with Jamison, his star protégé and successor. In the center of the space, a generously proportioned concrete and maple stair leads down to the building's largest room, a black-box theater with 295 seats that retract when additional dance practice space is needed.

The top four floors are reserved for company use. Each has a reception area that doubles as a lounge for administrative staff and dancers. The second, third, and fourth floors house administrative offices and two conference rooms. On the fifth floor, a Jack Mitchell shot of Jamison dancing is reproduced as a striking ' mosaic in black, white, and gray tile; on the same floor, in the lounge, the architects created a nook enclosed by translucent white acrylic sheets for watching videos of Ailey performances, some dating back more than 40 years. In fact, the designers honor the company's history by displaying archival posters and photographs throughout the center. "Those images make the dancers feel that it's really their building," says Iu.

Each of the 12 studios has slightly different proportions, with ceiling heights ranging from 16 to 20 feet. All but one have sprung floors of yellow Southern pine mounted on rubber supports. (Before the flooring was fabricated, Ailey dancers tried out mock-ups to determine the proper level of bounce.) In the studio dedicated to tap dancing, where noise is part of the art, the floor is maple. Ceilings are white acoustical tile; the windows, made of low-emission glass, appear almost white, too. The curtain wall is designed to keep street noise out and rehearsal music in.

Splashes of color—saffron, taxi-cab yellow, smoldering red—animate the center, which is billed as the largest American facility devoted entirely to dance. Still, for the most part, the architects, who are unabashed modernists, were happy to provide a neutral backdrop. "The building isn't about displaying our creativity," says Iu. "It's a canvas for the dancers to display theirs."