Symphony Space

Symphony Space in New York, NY by Polshek Partnership, 2002

Symphony Space, a community-based arts institution in New York City, was founded in 1978 in an abandoned movie theater. Now called Peter Norton Symphony Space, its new facility, situated around the corner from its newly renovated Leonard Nimoy Thalia at 95th and Broadway, is the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, both by the Polshek Partnership of New York. The extensive project includes "a new cafe, new entrances, lobbies and box offices, a broadcast room, dressing rooms, offices, an elevator and stairway to connect all three levels of the complex, and new building infrastructure, including plumbing, electrical, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning."

From its new entry it is obvious that the public spaces are a mix of architecture and text, combined to give the organization an identity on the Upper West Side. The dramatic, aluminum-clad cantilever and asymmetrical composition, along with the large, backlit text, are relating to Symphony Space's unconventional programming and the space's incorporation into a new residential development. While a small portion of the development externally, the entrance is composed in a way that helps it to stand out, recalling the De Stijl movement of the early 1900's.

As witnessed in the image at left, the entrance's presence is even stronger at night as the text leaps from the surface in a composition as asymmetrical as the architecture. Designed by multi-disciplinary firm Pentagram, the use of lower-case, sans-serif text connected by borders with rounded corners relates to Symphony Space's broad range of programs and appeal.

Both the early Modernist architectural vocabulary and the use of text continues to the interior public spaces, helping to unify the two theaters that are now linked. Keeping the in the De Stijl vein, it seems like text and light have replaced color as a means to articulate different surfaces, appropriate at a time when information is so widespread and valued.