Steven Holl Architects

Lewis Arts Complex

Lewis Arts Complex
© Paul Warchol

LEWIS ARTS COMPLEX

Steven Holl Architects

ARCHITECTS
Steven Holl Architects

LOCATION
Princeton, United States

YEAR
2017

CATEGORY
University

PHOTOGRAPHS
Paul Warchol

MANUFACTURERS
Kirlin, Wittmann

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Ove Arup & Partners

MEP ENGINEER
Ove Arup & Partners

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
Michael Van Valkenburgh and Associates

THEATRICAL SYSTEMS CONSULTANT
Auerbach Pollack Friedlander

ACOUSTICS
Ove Arup & Partners

FACADE CONSULTANT
Front Inc.

COUNTRY
United States

Text description provided by architect.

Center, take the arts at Princeton University to even greater heights by significantly expanding the performance, rehearsal and teaching spaces for the arts in new, state-of-the-art facilities. The complex creates a new campus gateway, shaping campus space while maximizing porosity and movement.

Lewis Arts Complex
© Paul Warchol
Lewis Arts Complex
© Paul Warchol

The arts complex, designed by Steven Holl Architects in partnership with BNIM, brings together the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Programs in Dance, Theater, Music Theater, and the Princeton Atelier, and the Department of Music’s expansion of its instructional and research facilities in the New Music Building.

The complex comprises the Wallace Dance Building and Theater; the Arts Tower, which includes the Hurley Gallery, administrative offices and additional studios; and the New Music Building.

Lewis Arts Complex
© Paul Warchol

The three buildings are integrated below ground in a Forum, an 8,000 square-foot open indoor gathering space that serves the various arts venues in the complex. Above the Forum is an outdoor plaza with a reflecting pool. Skylights in the pool filter natural light into the Forum below. Encouraging curiosity and interaction, the new arts plaza has overlook views into the dance and theater practice spaces and the orchestral rehearsal space.

As an open public invitation, this gateway space aims to connect the local community to the University The Wallace Dance Building and Theater is developed according to the idea of a “thing within a thing.” The black-box theatre is composed of steel, while the dance theaters are foamed aluminum, white washed wood and board formed concrete.  A “dancing stair” connects all levels.

Lewis Arts Complex
© Paul Warchol

The Arts Tower is developed with an “embedded” concept, its stone tower connecting to the proportions of Princeton’s historic Blair Arch. The New Music Building is developed according to an idea of “suspension.” Above the large orchestral rehearsal room individual practice rooms are suspended on steel rods.

 Acoustically separate, these individual wooden chambers have a resonant quality. The concrete structure of all three buildings is faced in thick 21-million-year-old Lecce Stone quarried in Lecce, Italy.

The new arts complex is named for and was made possible in part through a $101 million gift to the University made in 2006 by the late Peter B. Lewis, Princeton Class of 1955 and former University trustee.

Lewis Arts Complex
© Paul Warchol


Lewis Arts Complex
Lewis Arts Complex
Lewis Arts Complex

Steven Holl Architects
T +1 212 6297262 F +1 212 6297312
Steven Holl Architects
450 W 31st St 11th floor, New York, NY 10001, United States