REX is an internationally acclaimed architecture and design firm based in New York City. REX’s current projects include the Ronald O.
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Believing architecture should do things, not simply represent them, REX challenges and advances building typologies, and promotes the agency of architecture. REX aspires to produce inventive designs so functionally specific that they offer distinct aesthetic experiences. Joshua Ramus, founder and principal, leads REX’s think-tank of diverse professionals and all the firm’s projects. Unprejudiced b
y conventions, preconceived aesthetic strategies, or outcomes, the REX team returns to root problems and doggedly explores them with 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘯𝘢𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘵𝘦́. Through this process, REX exposes solutions that transcend those which could have initially or individually been imagined. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center in New York City (under construction); the new performing arts center for Brown University in Providence (under construction); the Necklace Residence on Long Island (under construction); the Mercedes-Benz Future Lab & Museum in Stuttgart; Elizabeth Quay, a 55-story mixed-use tower in Perth; and 205 North Quay, a 40-story office building in Brisbane. Seminal projects include the AT&T Performing Arts Center Dee & Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas; the Vakko Fashion Center & Power Media Headquarters in Istanbul; and the Seattle Central Library. Joshua led the latter project—hailed by Herbert Muschamp in The New York Times as “the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review in more than 30 years of writing about architecture”—while founding partner of OMA New York (the firm he later rebranded as REX). REX’s recently completed projects include 2050 M Street, a premium office building in Washington, DC that hosts CBS’s Washington Bureau; and the transformation of Five Manhattan West, the largest adaptive reuse project in New York City’s history. REX’s work has been recognized with the profession’s top accolades, including two AIA National Honor Awards, a U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology National Honor Award, an American Library Association National Building Award, two American Council of Engineering Companies’ National Gold Awards, a CTBUH Award of Excellence, Time magazine’s Building of the Year, and numerous AIA New York, ArchDaily, Architect/Progressive Architecture, Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Review/MIPIM, Architizer, and Wallpaper* design awards. REX has twice been named one of the World’s Top 10 Innovative Companies in Architecture by Fast Company. In 2016, Joshua was the first American recipient of the Marcus Prize, the $100,000 biennial, international architecture award conferred by the Marcus Corporation Foundation and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has also been credited as one of the “5 greatest architects under 50” by The Huffington Post, one of the world’s most influential young architects by Wallpaper*, one of the twenty most influential players in design by Fast Company, listed among “The 20 Essential Young Architects” by ICON magazine, and featured as one of the “Best and Brightest” by Esquire. In 2020, Joshua was honored by the experimental performance company STREB with their Action Maverick Award.
The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) announced REX’s Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center among its 2024 shortlist of 53 “outstanding projects” from 259 nominated buildings. Bestowed biennially, the prize acknowledges excellence in built works of architecture across the Americas. Thank you to the jury for this honor! To view MCHAP’s announcement, visit the link below.
https://www.mchap.co/mchap-2024
We are happy to announce that we won two Architizer A+ Awards!
REX was voted Best Medium-Sized Firm (16-40 Employees) and the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center was voted Best Hall/Theater!
Thank you to all that voted; we appreciate everyone’s support!
Construction continues on 9 The Esplanade, the smaller of two signature towers we designed for Brookfield in Elizabeth Quay, Perth, Australia.
Concrete work is being finalized and facade installation is underway. Completion is expected in Q1 of next year.
Popular choice voting for the 2024 Architizer A+ Awards closes at midnight on Friday, May 10, and we would be honored to receive your support! We are finalists in THREE categories:
1. REX is a finalist for Best Medium Sized Firm (16-40 Employees).
2. The Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center is a finalist for best Hall / Theater.
3. The Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University is a finalist in the Architecture + Light category.
Users can vote once per category every 24 hours. Link below:
https://shorturl.at/DHSW0
We need your vote! The Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center is a finalist for the 2024 Architizer A+ Award for best Hall/Theater! Users can vote once per category every 24 hours. Link below.
https://tinyurl.com/2fw3ducn
On Thursday, May 2, Joshua Ramus will give a lecture at The National Arts Club in Manhattan. Joshua will discuss the recently completed Perelman Performing Arts Center and other REX work. Link to register for the event below.
https://www.eventbrite.com/o/the-national-arts-club-6140247955
Last week, REX’s Leadership Team attended the 2024 AIANY Honors and Awards Luncheon, where Associate Principal Alysen Fiore accepted an Honor Award for the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center. Thanks again to Center for Architecture (AIANY) for the recognition!
Last week, Joshua Ramus participated in the Arq.Futuro conference in São Paulo, Brazil, where he lectured on architecture’s potential for supporting New Urban Centralities and participated in discussions about the future development of Campinas. Link below to an interview with Joshua in the Brazilian publication Veja.
https://veja.abril.com.br/comportamento/projetar-cidade-moderna-e-como-uma-guerra-diz-joshua-prince-ramus/
A big thank you again to Fast Company for ranking us No. 25 of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies. Only 10 spots behind Taylor Swift Productions!
Click the link below to read the full article announcing our ranking and highlighting the design for the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91029779/rex-most-innovative-companies-2024
Fast Company has ranked REX No. 25 of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2024! Fast Company’s annual ranking covers 58 industries and sectors, from advertising to video. Link to the list below:
https://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/list
Joshua Ramus has been named one of the “Top 25 Newsmakers of 2023” by Engineering News-Record. Meet Joshua and the other Newsmakers at the ENR Excellence gala on April 11. Link to the announcement below:
https://www.enr.com/articles/58028-enr-2023-top-25-newsmakers
Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center has been awarded the International Design Awards (IDA) 2023 Building of the Year! It also won Gold awards in both the “Cultural” and “Performing Arts Center” categories. Thank you International Design Awards, we are incredibly honored!
Link to the full list of award winners below:
https://www.idesignawards.com/winners/
The Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center has been recognized with an AIA New York Honor Award, the chapter's highest design award! Thank you Center for Architecture (AIANY) for this incredible honor!
Thank you Fast Company for the featured article covering the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center.
Link to the article below:
The Perelman Performing Arts Center is the last major piece of the Ground Zero puzzle.
Thank you to Los Angeles Times and columnist Carolina Miranda for the recently published article showcasing the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center. Carolina cites the importance of live performance—and flexible performance spaces—in countering the “loneliness epidemic” caused by architecture and technologies that “circumvent the casual interactions that act as social glue” in a post-COVID-19 world.
Link to the full article can be found below:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-12-26/the-pandemic-kept-us-apart-how-two-new-york-performance-bring-people-back-together
The Architect's Newspaper has named the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center as one its top stories of 2023!
Link to the article below:
https://www.archpaper.com/2023/12/here-are-the-top-news-stories-an-covered-in-2023/
Photo by Iwan Baan
Many thanks to Architectural Record for naming the Perelman Performing Arts Center to their top ten projects of 2023! We are deeply honored.
Link to the article below:
https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/16635-record-editors-top-10-projects-from-2023
Photo by Iwan Baan.
The Perelman Performing Arts Center has been included on The Wall Street Journal's list of "The Best Architecture of 2023," calling PACNYC the "biggest surprise of 2023" and "It cannot be appreciated from photographs, and all the critic can say is go and see it."
Thank you The Wall Street Journal! Read the full article at the link below:
https://www.wsj.com/style/design/the-best-architecture-of-2023-gilder-center-buffalo-akg-art-museum-boston-logan-airport-terminal-e-philadelphia-battery-perelman-performing-arts-center-a7ee5b9d
Photo by Iwan Baan.
This past Friday, The Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University received an Honor Award from The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Rhode Island. REX project leader Davis Richardson was in attendance to receive the award. Many thanks to AIA Rhode Island for this great honor!
Link to the full project description can be found below:
rex-ny.com/project/lindemann-brown/
Thank you Dezeen for recognizing the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center as one of the top ten architecture projects of 2023! Link to the full article below:
https://www.dezeen.com/2023/12/09/top-us-architecture-projects-2023/
Photo by Iwan Baan
Last night, The Lindemann opened ‘The Shape of Things’ by conceptual artist Carrie Mae Weems. So amazing to see Avery Willis Hoffman, Brown Arts Institute’s inaugural artistic director, play with the building right out of the gate.
"During the day, the marble washes the interior in warm amber light; at night, it glows like a creamy incandescent boulder." - The Architect's Newspaper describing the new PAC NYC
In his review of the Perelman Performing Arts Center for The Architect’s Newspaper, Justin Beal describes being taken by REX Founding Principal Joshua Ramus backstage for a firsthand tour of the theater’s transforming machinery: “It is here in the building’s mechanized core where it possesses the greatest energy…”
The Perelman Performing Arts Center designed by Rex, Davis Brody Bond, and Rockwell Group opens in Lower Manhattan.
Catch up with REX’s Founding Principal, Joshua Ramus, as he discusses with Architectural Digest the recently completed Perelman Performing Arts Center—a producing house for music, theater, dance, chamber opera, and film pioneering new forms of theatrical adaptability.
The Lindemann’s main volume is shrink-wrapped in an extruded aluminum rainscreen, composed of a fractal-like fluted geometry. The façade’s color and pattern shift in appearance with the time of day and seasonal changes. The flute motif reappears throughout The Lindemann, forming amphitheater seating under the lobby cantilever, benches in the lobby and promenade, scalloped theater seats in the main hall, washbasins in the lavatories, walls in the balcony corridors, and acoustic treatment in the orchestra, dance, and theater rehearsal/performance spaces.
The final image shows a fluted bench in the Diana Nelson and John Atwater Lobby, adjacent to “Infinite Composition,” a site-specific, dynamic light installation by internationally acclaimed artist Leo Villareal.
Photos by Iwan Baan
Embodying Brown’s commitment to infusing the arts into all intellectual pursuits, a clerestory slices through the entire building at stage level, allowing—when desired—the campus at large to vicariously engage in the constant creation of art. The clerestory expands on three of The Lindemann’s sides, cantilevering 35 feet towards the east to form a dramatic main lobby with views over The Walk; 7 feet on the south to create a promenade with direct views into the main hall; and 14 feet on the west as an assembly area for performers that can serve as a more intimate lobby.
The clerestory protects the main hall’s acoustics (or main hall acoustically) with three glass layers: insulated glass units around the clerestory’s outer perimeter; a rectilinear glass enclosure of 25 mm laminated, frameless glazing that provides warm, full-frequency reflection of musical sound; and a second, inner boundary of 40 mm laminated glass arcs shaped to distribute sound throughout the stage and audience areas.
Photos by Iwan Baan
The Lindemann provides Brown University with a one-of-a-kind venue that houses performances, teaching, and research for music, theater, dance, and media. All six surfaces of this radically flexible academic arts “laboratory” modulate physically and acoustically to create five pre-set configurations that include an immersive experimental media cube; a 388-seat recital hall; a 275-seat end-stage theater; a 530-seat concert hall with a stage for a 100-piece orchestra and a choir loft for 70; and a large flat floor configuration.
The transformation from one configuration to another—or the many secondary layouts—can be achieved in four to eight hours with only six staff members thanks to an array of automated and manually assisted performance equipment: 5 suspended, four-tier seating gantries (two tiers for audience members and two for technical staff), 40 adjustable acoustic reflector panels, 7 motorized utility battens, 3 lighting bridges, 2 stage lifts, 3 orchestra platform lifts, 6 telescoping orchestra risers, 3 seating wagon lifts, a three-unit retractable seating system, 5 seating wagons, a ring of deployable acoustic curtains, and a complete technical gridiron 55 feet above the floor.
Thank you Brown University for your creative and visionary collaboration on the Lindemann Performing Arts Center. It is an honor to be able to contribute to your mission to continuously push the boundaries of innovation in the arts and pedagogy.
We are honored that the newly opened Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University made the cover of Architectural Record! Thank you Joann Gonchar for the great piece.
https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/16543-a-performance-venue-at-brown-university-gives-the-arts-top-billing
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The Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University is a radical, one-of-a-kind venue that pushes the boundaries of innovation in performance space. This time-lapse video documents The Lindemann’s transformational nature: watch as the Main Hall moves through unique manual and automated operations above and below the stage to achieve five primary configurations: an immersive experimental media cube; recital hall; end-stage theater; concert hall for orchestra and choir, and a large flat floor for concerts and events. We are grateful to have worked with a team of brilliant professionals to accomplish this unprecedented building which will inspire new forms of art-making and artistic collaborations at Brown University and beyond. Thank you Acentech, ARUP, Atelier Ten, Cost+Plus, CSI, Diversified, Front, Gala Systems, GEI, GlennRieder, IGUS, Jezet, Jensen Hughes, L’Observatoire International, Magnusson Klemencic, Niascon, Odeh, Professional Audio Design, Serapid, Shawmut Design and Construction, Skyline, Soberman, Stephen Turner, Stimson, Studio Loutsis, Texas Scenic Company, Theatre Projects, Thornton Tomasetti, Threshold Acoustics, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Woodard & Curran, and the Brown Arts Initiative for their fearless advancement of pedagogical strategies and support of architecture. Video by Udris Films
We are excited to share this animation illustrating the ideas behind PAC NYC's façade, structure, and flexibility. Link to the full project description below: https://rex-ny.com/project/the-perelman-wtc/
We recently tested one of the drawbridges that will be used in the Brown University Performing Arts Center's main hall. These fourteen drawbridges are deployed to allow for uninterrupted circulation on the balcony levels in the various stage-audience configurations. Shoutout to Theatre Projects, Texas Scenic Company, and Brown Arts Initiative for helping us bring the design to life! Read more about the project at https://rex-ny.com/project/pac-at-brown/.
The balcony seating gantries of the Brown University Performing Arts Center successfully completed their first test run late last week! While this maiden move was done by hand (and slowly!), reconfiguration of the Main Hall’s balconies, acoustic ceiling reflectors, and floor rake will be automated. These elements enable the highly flexible Main Hall to transform amongst five radically different performing arts typologies. To learn more about the project, click the link below: https://rex-ny.com/project/pac-at-brown/
Found Objects Music Productions
Jay Street, New York
