Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC), the cultural cornerstone and final public element of the World Trade Center site, opened with its first public performance on Tuesday, September 19, 2023.
This new performing arts centre in Lower Manhattan, led by Mike Bloomberg as Board Chair, Khady Kamara as Executive Director, and Bill Rauch as Artistic Director, is a versatile hub, providing flexible venues that welcome various artistic programs and serve audiences and creators.
The idea for PAC NYC started two decades ago when Mike Bloomberg, during his time as New York City's Mayor, envisioned a performing arts centre as a vital cultural element in the World Trade Center site's redevelopment after 9/11.
PAC NYC will showcase new creations, premieres, joint productions, and collaborative projects in theatre, dance, music, opera, film, and beyond in its first year. The season starts with "Refuge: A Concert Series to Welcome the World," a five-night global music series centred around the theme of refuge.
Named for businessman, philanthropist, and benefactor Ronald O. Perelman, the Perelman Performing Arts Center is a 138-foot-tall, cube-shaped building with radically flexible capabilities designed by the architecture firm REX, led by founding principal Joshua Ramus. REX’s design, developed in collaboration with executive architect Davis Brody Bond, theater consultant Charcoalblue, and acoustician Threshold Acoustics, is conceived for an artistic program that will have vast and varied needs to serve New York’s extraordinarily diverse arts community.
The building is wrapped in nearly 5,000 half-inch thick marble tiles laminated into insulated glass units. The marble has been bookmatched to create a biaxially symmetric pattern that is identical on all four sides of the building. The marble façade allows light to radiate in during the day and glow out during the evening.
Image : Iwan Baan