Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center

The general impression that this building gives to the onlooker is a massive play of rectangular boxes of different sizes superposed together, lacking any fenestration but stressing their horizontal dimension. The exception is a prominent semi cylindrical protruding mass, which appears in the foreground, with a different surface treatment. This is the main entrance volume that leads to the pedestrian entrance, surrounded by a continuous closed brick wall at the ground floor. Above, a two stories space houses the great lobby or foyer, with a system of glazed windows that covers all the upper part of the semi cylindrical volume. The whole achieves its unity because of the use of horizontal white rendered stucco bands that remarks the interior levels and the top of each volume. A narrow white stucco band alternates the huge red brick wall of the lower block.

However, this is not a mere, whimsical play of cubic forms. The higher volume that appears at the background houses the stage and the backstage, (which needs a higher space to hold curtains and scenic backgrounds). The intermediate volume that precedes it, and lies beyond the semi cylindrical entrance, holds the spectator’s seats.
The visual effect as it appears to an observer, running fast (i.e., by car) from the straightness of the 5th avenue, is based on the contrast of convex, cylindrical and rectangular masses, either closed or opened, but carefully tied up, and this appears to be the main formal intention of its designers.