The College of the Holy Cross Prior Performing Arts Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, was designed by architects of the US firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The center was inaugurated on 24 September 2022, coinciding with Worcester Community Day.

The building provides a comprehensive program of training spaces for all students of the visual and performing arts at the College of the Holy Cross, including a 400-seat auditorium and a flexible studio theatre for 200 people, as well as many other rooms and facilities such as the relocated Cantor Art Gallery.
The College of the Holy Cross Prior Performing Arts Centre designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is located at the top of the campus where all the campus circulations converge, making it a central element that acts as the heart of the campus. Around it are four other volumes connected to the arts center: the Multi-Purpose Theatre for opera and music; the Studio Theatre for theatre; Art/Media; and Practice/Production.

The space between the four pavilions is crossed by two walls that serve to form a central space to which the four pavilions are connected. These walls form a grid of 9 zones in which the corners have different programs and functions including green areas used as a small amphitheater, a teaching area, an outdoor workspace, a meditation garden, and a sculpture garden.

The pair of twin walls grows and transforms, and the wall of one of the pavilions becomes the roof of its neighbor, forming a chain around the center and creating arched entrances that lead directly into the heart of the building. The brick and limestone walls of the old campus have been reinterpreted with concrete and steel ones, creating a unique counterpoint that dialogues with the architectures of the other buildings on the campus.


College of the Holy Cross Prior Performing Arts Center by DS + R. Photograph by Iwan Baan.


College of the Holy Cross Prior Performing Arts Center by DS + R. Photograph by Iwan Baan.
 
“The new Prior Performing Arts Center is an uncommon commons. The building is uniquely perched on a hill overlooking the campus and Worcester, yet straddles the intersection of multiple cross-campus paths. While its world-class facilities provide a singular new home for Holy Cross's performing arts students, its atrium invites the broader student body to participate in casual and unscripted creative activities.

The building's dual identity is also expressed in its materials, which are tough and industrial without sacrificing warmth and comfort. We're excited for the performing arts center to welcome students and faculty into a new kind of space for Holy Cross—one that puts intersectionality, inclusion, and interdisciplinarity at its heart.”
Charles Renfro, partner at DS+R and lead designer for the project
 

Description of project by Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The 84,000 sf Prior Performing Arts Center for the College of the Holy Cross has been designed to be an incubator for multidisciplinary learning grounded in the performing and visual arts for students from all academic disciplines. Standing as the cultural center of the school—with venues for both fine arts and performing arts—the building houses the 400-seat concert hall, a 200-seat flexible studio theatre, and the relocated Cantor Art Gallery.

Anchoring the Upper District of campus, the Center gathers together existing vectors of campus circulation at its heart: the Beehive. Around this central space the programs are divided into four pavilions: the Multipurpose Theater for opera and music; the Studio Theater for drama; Art/Media; and Practice/Production.

The four pavilions are contained within two pairs of walls that intersect to form a nine square grid. In each corner of the grid lies a unique courtyard garden: a small amphitheater, an outdoor teaching area and workspace, a meditative garden, and a sculpture garden. The paired walls twist, rise, and interlock, the wall of one pavilion becoming the roof of its neighbor, forming a chain around the center and creating arched entries directly into the heart of the building. The opposing precast concrete and weathering steel walls reinterpret the brick and limestone of the historic campus. Taking advantage of the site’s natural beauty, the Center’s design creates a meaningful counterpoint to the surrounding campus architecture, both fitting in and standing out on the highest point on campus.

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Architects
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Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Executive Architect.- Perry Dean Rogers.
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Collaborators
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Acoustics & Audio/Visual.- Jaffe Holden.
Civil Engineer.- Nitsch Engineering.
Code Consultant.- Code Red Consultants.
Cost Estimator.- Dharam Consulting.
Foodservice Consultant.- Colburn & Guyette.
Geotechnical.- Haley Aldrich.
Hardware Specifications.- Campbell-McCabe, Inc.
IT/Security.- Shen Milson & Wilke.
Landscape Architect.- Olin.
Lighting.- Tillotson Design Associates.
MEP/FP Engineer.- Altieri Sebor Wieber.
Specifications.- Construction Specifications, Inc.
Structural Engineer.- Robert Silman Associates.
Sustainability.- Transsolar.
Theater Planning.- Fisher Dachs Associates, Inc.
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Client
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College of the Holy Cross.
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Contractor
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Dimeo Construction.
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Area
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84,000 sqm.
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Dates
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24 September 2022.
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Budget
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€ 112,255,880
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Location
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Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
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Photography
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Diller Scofidio + Renfro Studio. Founded in 1981, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is a design studio whose practice spans the fields of architecture, urban design, installation art, multi-media performance, digital media, and print. With a focus on cultural and civic projects, DS+R’s work addresses the changing role of institutions and the future of cities. The studio is based in New York and is comprised of over 100 architects, designers, artists and researchers, led by four partners--Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin.

DS+R completed two of the largest architecture and planning initiatives in New York City’s recent history: the adaptive reuse of an obsolete, industrial rail infrastructure into the High Line, a 1.5 mile-long public park, and the transformation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ half-century-old campus. The studio is currently engaged in two more projects significant to New York, scheduled to open in 2019: The Shed, the first multi-arts center designed to commission, produce, and present all types of performing arts, visual arts, and popular culture, and the renovation and expansion of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Most recently, the studio was also selected to design: Adelaide Contemporary, a new gallery and public sculpture park in South Australia; the Centre for Music, which will be a permanent home for the London Symphony Orchestra; and a new collection and research centre for the V&A in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Recent projects include the 35-acre Zaryadye Park adjacent to the Kremlin in Moscow; the Museum of Image & Sound on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; The Broad, a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley; the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University in New York; and The Juilliard School in Tianjin, China.

DS+R’s independent work includes the Blur Building, a pavilion made of fog on Lake Neuchâtel for the Swiss Expo; Exit, an immersive data-driven installation about human migration at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; Charles James: Beyond Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Arbores Laetae, an animated micro-park for the Liverpool Biennial; Musings on a Glass Box at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris; and Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design at the Jewish Museum in New York. A major retrospective of DS+R’s work was mounted at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Most recently, the studio designed two site-specific installations at the 2018 Venice Biennale and the Costume Institute’s Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. DS+R also directed and produced The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock, a free, choral performance featuring 1,000 singers atop the High Line, co-created with David Lang.

DS+R has authored several books: The High Line (Phaidon Press, 2015), Lincoln Center Inside Out: An Architectural Account (Damiani, 2013), Flesh: Architectural Probes (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011), Blur: The Making of Nothing (Harry N. Abrams, 2002), and Back to the Front: Tourisms of War (Princeton Architectural Press, 1996).

DS+R has been distinguished with the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture, Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential" list, the Smithsonian Institution's 2005 National Design Award, the Medal of Honor and the President's Award from AIA New York, and Wall Street Journal Magazine's 2017 Architecture Innovator of the Year Award. Ricardo Scofidio and Elizabeth Diller are fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and are International Fellows at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
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Published on: September 30, 2022
Cite: "New College of the Holy Cross Prior Performing Arts Center by DS+R" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/new-college-holy-cross-prior-performing-arts-center-dsr> ISSN 1139-6415
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