THE SHED
O penness was a core part of the brief
for New York City’s new US$404m
(€366.5m) performing arts centre,
The Shed, which opened in April
2019. “For performances, there are
US$10 tickets in every row, rather than just in the
nosebleed area,” jokes Elizabeth Diller of Diller
Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), the lead architect firm
on the project. But there’s real seriousness in her
tone too, as she adds: “The Shed was conceived
programmatically and physically as radically
open to the public, exposing new populations
to experimental work in the arts that would
otherwise not be exposed to it and it features
emerging artists along with established ones.”
The brief was that the venue should not only
be dedicated to the performing and visual arts
and popular culture, but also be part of the
Westside Manhattan community, not imposed
upon it. DS+R was involved on the project from
the beginning, in 2008, when the city
of New York created Hudson Yards
Development Corporation and
issued a request for proposals.
“It was at the height of
the recession,” recalls Diller.
“They were looking for
ideas for a new cultural
facility at Hudson Yards;
in their words, a ‘unique
and innovative place for
creative expression and the
deepest, freshest thinking
regarding cultural production
and consumption’. We responded
with our friend, David Rockwell the
collaborating architect at the Rockwell
Group with both a physical and theoretical
strategy for a flexible building that could house
all the creative disciplines under one roof.
We proposed architecture so flexible it could
even change the size of its footprint.”
Moving target
The Shed’s party piece is its 37m (121.4ft)-high
moveable shell-like structure, which slides out
from the fixed part of the building across a plaza
to double the building’s covered footprint in five
minutes. It moves on eight wheels, powered by
12 15hp motors, rolling along two tracks at
0.25mph (0.40km/h). Inspiration for this massive
movable unit came from the huge gantry cranes
that used to work the piers nearby to bring goods
into Manhattan. The more complex, modern-day
kinetics engineering for The Shed was
12 AUDITORIA 2020 VOLUME ONE
DS+R was also
behind the High
Line, transforming
derelict New York
railway tracks into
urban walkways and
green spaces
Clockwise from top left: A performance in the McCourt with
extra seating in the galleries; the building with the outer shell
fully extended; an exhibition in one of the two large galleries;
full rigging in the McCourt; the 500-seat Griffin Theater
Timothy Schenck