{"id":898,"date":"2006-05-30T09:01:32","date_gmt":"2006-05-30T16:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2006\/05\/choreographing_public_space\/"},"modified":"2006-05-30T09:01:32","modified_gmt":"2006-05-30T16:01:32","slug":"choreographing_public_space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/choreographing_public_space.php","title":{"rendered":"Choreographing public space"},"content":{"rendered":"

An article in the Sunday New York Times<\/i> describes a collaboration<\/a> between architect David Rockwell and choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Together, they conceived the structure and flow of the new JetBlue Airways terminal being built at Kennedy International Airport. The intent of the collaboration was to create a space that encourages people to move well.<\/p>\n

The project led them to explore productive public spaces around New York. Among them, Radio City Music Hall’s Grand Foyer offered a recurring theme of the power of interior architecture in directing individual and social behavior:<\/p>\n


\nIndividual behavior is only part of the story; the Grand Foyer also alters the behavior of crowds, who instinctively know how to use it. Much as a dancer doing pirouettes keeps her eyes focused on a reference point so she won’t get dizzy, visitors, without even realizing it, use the room’s precisely deployed architectural signposts — stairway, chandelier, mirrors, doorframes — to align themselves and stay on track. As a result, Radio City can pull 5,900 people through its lobby without contusion or confusion; more than that, it does so with the theatricality and orderliness that you might imagine at a formal ball.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rockwell and Mitchell had worked together before on several Broadway shows — The Rocky Horror Show<\/i>, Hairspray<\/i>, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels<\/i> — where Rockwell’s set designs had framed and influenced Mitchell’s choreography. The extension of the collaboration into massive public space seemed a provocative next step. We’ll know how well it worked when the facility opens in 2008.<\/p>\n

In the meanwhile, it’s striking to realize how little such work is done in cultural facility design and construction, where public spaces are generally less about helping patrons find their way through the building, and more about large pools of people (just see, for example, how many ushers it takes to direct people to the correct theater entrance, or how many people in a lobby look confused). Elegant public spaces tell<\/i> you how they should be used, while also letting you find your own way. You would think cultural organizations would be the first to recognize this fact.<\/p>\n

We may be stuck in the assumption that the lobby or foyer is just a holding room for the true<\/i> experiential spaces in our buildings — the galleries and theaters that hold the art. But, as Mitchell comments in the Times<\/i> article, the distinction between the functional space and the creative space many not be as dramatic as we think:<\/p>\n


\n“Is it an airport? Is it a Broadway show? What’s the difference?”
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article in the Sunday New York Times describes a collaboration between architect David Rockwell and choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Together, they conceived the structure and flow of the new JetBlue Airways terminal being built at Kennedy International Airport. The intent of the collaboration was to create a space that encourages people to move well. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}