Project Details
- Project Name
- St. Ann's Warehouse
- Client/Owner
- St. Ann's Warehouse
- Project Scope
- Preservation/Restoration
- Size
- 24,000 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2015
- Shared by
- Hanley Wood
- Team
- Marvel Architects, Architect
- Consultants
-
Landscape Architect: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates,Construction Manager: Yorke Construction Corp,Structural Engineer: Silman,Lighting Designer: David Weeks Studio and Stan Pressner,Other: Higgins Quasebarth & Partners, LLC,Other: Flyleaf Creative,Building Enclosure/Artwork: Tom Fruin, Sign Sculptor,Other: Buro Happold
- Project Status
- Built
- Cost
- $31,000,000
2017 AIA Institute Honor Award Winner in Architecture
Popular Brooklyn performance venue St. Ann’s Warehouse has long been something of a misnomer. Originally located in a church (whence the name), it relocated in 2000 to a former spice-milling factory near the East River waterfront. It was only two years ago that it moved into a proper warehouse—taking up residence in a former tobacco storage facility adjacent to the newly completed Brooklyn Bridge Park. And what a warehouse it is.
Built in 1860, the building bears the traces of more than a century of New York City history: it was originally five stories tall, and had to be altered when the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge was built overhead. In the 1940s, three stories were removed to avoid adding fire protection, a decision that would prove fateful 30 years later, during the arson wave of the 1970s, when the building suffered a fire that left it abandoned for years.
Keeping up the momentum of Brooklyn’s ongoing cultural revival, the building has now been resurrected by St. Ann’s as a creative hub, with a 700-seat theater, offices, auxiliary spaces, and a graceful interior courtyard by landscape master Michael Van Valkenburgh at its center. The sensitive renovation by New York’s own Marvel Architects takes the historic Dumbo structure—with its surviving x-shaped tie-rod anchors and elegant brick arches—and does as little to it as the new program allows, popping up the roof for extra space and technical accommodations, and dramatically lighting the new glass-brick-clad clerestory to give the old building a little bit of showbiz glamour.
Project Credits
Project: St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York
Client: St. Ann’s Warehouse . Susan Feldman (artistic director)
Architect: Marvel Architects, New York . Jonathan J. Marvel, FAIA (founding principal); Lissa So, AIA (founding partner); Scott Demel, AIA (director); Zachary Griffin, AIA (associate)
Mechanical Engineer: BuroHappold
Structural Engineer: Robert Silman Associates
Lighting Designer: Domingo Gonzales Associates (exterior); David Weeks Studio (custom light fixtures)
Landscape Architect: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Construction Manager/General Contractor: Yorke Construction
Theater Design Consultant: CharcoalBlue
Project Manager/Owners Representative: DBI Projects AP
Expeditor: JM Zoning
Historic Preservation Consultants: Higgins Quasebarth & Partners
Graphic Design: Flyleaf Creative
Sign Sculptor: Tom Fruin
Size: 24,000 square feet
Cost: $31 million
To see the rest of ARCHITECT's coverage of the 2017 AIA Institute Honor Awards, click here.
Project Description
On a prominent DUMBO corner along the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront the avant-garde performance presenters, St. Ann’s Warehouse, built its new home in the 1860 Tobacco Warehouse. The design within this ruin-like brick building, celebrates unexpected materials of glass bricks, black steel, and plywood. A structural steel volume housing the theater is inserted snugly into the walls, allowing the historic arched doors and windows to be both inside and outside. The program of lobby, 700-seat theatre, offices, event space and community amenities open onto an intimate triangular garden within the warehouse’s walls. The layout of the theater and hall allows for flexibility and can easily accommodate varied events for both theater and community uses.
