Cirque du Soleil

Within the Performance centre the traditional engagement between visitors and artist is upheaved where a constant exchange between stage and auditorium is in question. In a way, the entire structure is a stage for Cirque Du Solei. There also exists a blurring of interior and exterior where the external public is able to witness the activities that occur within. The Performance Centre, located in Brooklyn, New York, is designed to display one of the most ground-breaking performance groups of our era, the Cirque du Soleil. We chose to exemplify this group’s long tradition of engaging the live audience with their performances by bringing the outside inside. Large windows provide an opportunity for the public to view live performances, as well as, training activities from outside. In effect the traditional boundaries set behind the curtain are removed providing the public with a holistic view of the ‘performance’, where even the audience is a spectacle. It was important to create a balance between two parts, which also inspired us to apply the term within our formal operations. We decided upon a set of two distinctive curves in 3D space, of which the origin was Gömböc, a self stabilising volume. Having those as our sort of geometric DNA, we created various components, altering their formal expression in regard to different programatic and conceptual needs. For overall balance in our architectural proposal the aggregation of the elements creates moments of intersections and nesting, resolving in a novel part to whole relationship.