Future Fest 2024: How REX Is Reimagining Performance Architecture

Future Fest 2024: How REX Is Reimagining Performance Architecture

With Joshua Ramus

Join Joshua Ramus, founding principal of REX, as he discusses the transformative design of the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC), a cultural keystone in the World Trade Center master plan. With a commitment to creating equitable and engaging public spaces, REX integrates architectural ingenuity with community-centric values, redefining the relationship between people and performance.

The PAC NYC exemplifies how contemporary design can honor history while embracing innovation, featuring a unique façade and a flexible interior that enhances the audience experience. Through this project, REX demonstrates the potential of architecture to resonate deeply with its context and users.

By attending this talk, you'll learn:

• How REX created a highly adaptable performance space that enhance artistic expression.
• The significance of integrating community needs into architectural design.
• Innovative strategies for balancing structural integrity with aesthetic beauty in challenging contexts.

We'll also be getting hyped up for Season 13 of Architizer's A+Awards program, which launches this October — register now to make sure your firm is a part of it this year!

About Joshua Ramus

Believing architecture should actively empower its users and communities—not simply be a representational art—Joshua Ramus’ work advances building paradigms and promotes architecture's agency. Over his 28-year career, Joshua co-founded the firm OMA New York—which he later rebranded as REX—and led the design of projects that have been celebrated worldwide, such as the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center in New York (about which The New York Times raved, “Lower Manhattan could have hardly asked for a more spectacular work of public architecture.”), the Seattle Central Library, and the AT&T Performing Arts Center Dee & Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas. Joshua has been honored with the Action Maverick Award from the experimental performance company STREB and was the first American recipient of the international Marcus Prize. He has also been credited as one of: the “5 greatest architects under 50” by HuffPost; the world’s most influential young architects by Wallpaper*; the twenty most influential players in design by Fast Company; “The 20 Essential Young Architects” by ICON magazine; and the “Best and Brightest” by Esquire.

Joshua’s projects consistently receive the profession’s top accolades, including two AIA National Honor Awards and Time magazine’s Building of the Year. Joshua is currently working on 9 & 15 The Esplanade, a pair of mixed-use skyscrapers in Perth, Australia; two residential towers on the Brooklyn waterfront, as part of the redevelopment of the iconic Domino Sugar Factory site; and two hybrid retail and cultural hubs for Kia Motors in Seoul and Jeju, South Korea; amongst others. Joshua also recently completed The Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University in Providence; and 2050 M Street, a premium office building in the District of Columbia that hosts CBS’ Washington Bureau.

About Paul Keskeys

Paul Keskeys is Editor in Chief at Architizer. An architect-trained editor, writer and content creator, Paul graduated from UCL and the University of Edinburgh, gaining an MArch in Architectural Design with distinction. Paul has spoken about the art of architecture and storytelling at many national industry events, including AIANY, NeoCon, KBIS, the Future NOW Symposium, the Young Architect Conference and NYCxDesign. As well as hundreds of editorial publications on Architizer, Paul has also had features published in Architectural Digest, PIN—UP Magazine, Archinect, Aesthetica Magazine and PUBLIC Journal.