 The David Rubenstein Atrium is a privately owned public space that acts as a gateway to New York`s Lincoln Center. It serves as a ticketing venue and information area for Lincoln Center and also hosts performances, public seating, and food service. The presence of the atrium is announced on Broadway and Columbus by two marquees that are punctuated with large occuli. Once inside, visitors are greeted by a thirty foot high plant wall, which cleanses and moistens the air and creates the sense of a calm and inviting garden. A fountain in the ceiling, trickling thin streams of water to a pool below, adds the soothing sound of falling water to the space. Occuli piercing a gold ceiling bring light and color. Along the walls is a 97-foot felt wall art installation whose 114 panels were designed by the Dutch textile artist, Claudy Jongstra. Benches and moveable seating makes the atrium a comfortable place to meet friends and enjoy a light meal. 

Lincoln Center

David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien discuss their project for the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center

Prospect Park

LeFrak Lakeside Center at Prospect Park

 The Center for the Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College is a gathering place for students, faculty, and professionals on the front lines of public action to confront what it means to make lasting change on the world`s most pressing problems. The site has views of the Green Mountains to the east, the meadow to the north, the pond and wetlands to the west, and the Visual and Performing Arts Center to the south. Rather than one large structure, the program is divided into three buildings&mdash;the symposium, residences for fellows and visitors, and a flexible, multi-use space known as the Lens. The buildings form a central courtyard, encouraging a spirit of collaboration and connection, which is reinforced by walkways between the buildings that link to existing campus circulation. 

Bennington College

Center for the Advancement of Public Action

 The Phoenix Art Museum is a composite of several buildings constructed over a period of fifty years. After a successful first addition in 1996 along with the continued growth of Phoenix, the studio was asked to rethink and strategize the museum site. The second addition completed 10 years later provides a new wing with over 20,000 square feet of column-free gallery space. The 10,000 square foot, entrance pavilion is oriented towards a new entry court and visitor parking. A sandblasted concrete wall shields the serene, Palo Verde tree shaded entry court from the surrounding traffic. A curtain of water drops from a large fountain into a granite pool, giving the sound and sense of coolness. The 40 foot cantilever of the new entrance creates a great shaded outdoor &ldquo;room.&rdquo; Laminated 1-1/2&rdquo; thick 15-foot high glass panels create a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor spaces. At night a constellation of ceiling fixtures creates a festive atmosphere for museum parties and the appropriately titled The Last Scattering Surface, a piece by Josiah McElheny is a centerpiece of light. Passage to the existing museum occurs through a dramatic 26 foot high narrow space. The sculpted ceiling reflects soft light from a clerestory above. In the new gallery wing, a skylight, 45 feet high, casts changing light onto the ceiling surface. A sculptural concrete and stone stair and a vertical mast of sandblasted concrete enclosing the elevator, rise through the space to connect four levels of galleries. On the top floor, a small cantilevered room extending from the corner of the museum, allows a measure of controlled natural light into the gallery and provides a respite with a view toward the mountains of Phoenix. The gallery wing uses locally fabricated pre-cast concrete panels both as structure and for exposed architectural surfaces. Green glacier quartz, used as an aggregate in the first renovation, was used in smaller aggregate size in a dark concrete mix. A tectonic rela 

Phoenix Art Museum

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien discuss their two addition projects for the Phoenix Art Museum.

 Located in the heart of the University of Pennsylvania, Skirkanich Hall is home to the Bioengineering Department. It is an infill building that functions as a connector by creating a new public quadrangle and entry for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Movement and interaction is emphasized with generous circulation spaces that offer places to sit and gather. The building is cantilevered over the street and descends twenty feet below grade to minimize vertical impact. An open atrium continues up from the ground through five floors above. The laboratories are placed on either side. A vibrant yellow tile with a changing pattern enhances the core space. To subtly stand out from the red brick buildings next door, a new kind of brick was developed through an extensive process to balance texture, color, durability, and stability. The mossy green colored brick changes with the light of the day. Giant glass shingles contrast the density of the surrounding masonry and bring filtered light into the laboratories. Visitors and students can either enter the building, or pass through it to reach a pair of courtyards. The larger court serves as a public plaza and passageway, while a more intimate garden is sunken and screened. 

University of Pennsylvania

Skirkanich Hall, University of Pennsylvania, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

 The American Folk Art Museum is an idiosyncratic home for idiosyncratic art. A 40 foot wide, 100 foot long site on 53rd street is home for the American Folk Art Museum. Completed in 2001, the eight level museums is the first new museum built in New York in over three decades. Four upper floors are devoted to gallery space for permanent and temporary exhibitions. A small caf&eacute; overlooks 53rd street from the mezzanine and provides a view of the two-story atrium. To accommodate the program the building extends two levels below ground; one floor holds the auditorium and the classrooms while the lowest level houses the museum offices, library and archive. At the street level is a museum store, accessible during non-museum hours via a separate entrance. A skylight above a grand stair between the second and third floors fills the adjacent galleries with natural light. Openings at each level allows light to filter down to the lowest level. Interior spaces are animated by changing light. Art is built into the structure and circulation paths of the building. In addition to the gallery space, a series of niches display a more permanent selection of art objects. Visitors choose from different routes to move through the building and to walk from floor to floor. The Folk Art Museum is surrounded on three sides by the Museum of Modern Art. The fa&ccedil;ade of the Folk Art Museum makes a quiet statement of independence. Metal panels of white bronze, cast at an art foundry, clad the fa&ccedil;ade. Variation within the surface was achieved by casting the panels from sand molds taken from the texture of concrete. Sculptural in form, the fa&ccedil;ade recalls an abstracted open hand. The panels fold inward to create a faceted plane. The fa&ccedil;ade catches the glow of the rising and setting sun, subtly shifting with the weather and the seasons. The building has recently been sold to the Museum of Modern Art. 

American Folk Art Museum

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien discuss their design of the American Folk Art Museum

 The C.V. Starr East Asian Library rests in the &ldquo;classical core&rdquo; of the UC Berkeley campus. Tucked into the hillside and clad in white granite, this quiet box is layered with bronze screens, powerfully representing the building`s Asian mission. The screens unify the exterior while providing shade to the interior. Lit at night, they emerge as a golden veil, a glowing symbol of the building`s legacy in the heart of campus. The solid exterior contrasts the illuminated interior. The building`s core is open and bathed in natural light from a sculpted skylight. Stairs, cantilevered from a central, structural spine wall, rise through the space and bridges connect to stacks on either side of the atrium. Large windows create a relationship with the surrounding California landscape. Various materials bring color, warmth and texture to the interiors. The colorful and light filled space encourages the exploration of character language texts. 

C.V. Starr East Asian Library

 The Neurosciences Institute is a theoretical and clinical research campus for the study of the brain. The program is comprised of a theory center, laboratories, and an auditorium. The 3 buildings are arranged to form a central plaza that unifies the entire project. Cutting into the sloping site, the buildings maintain low profiles and a strong connection with the land. As a result of this partially buried condition, the landscape and the buildings form a quiet courtyard. The open yet sheltered space encourages interdisciplinary interaction. Institute visitors are greeted at the Theory Center, which wraps the plaza on the north side. The largest of the three buildings, the three-story Theory Center houses a library, reading room, refectory, conference rooms, administration offices, fellows` offices, and computer rooms. A 352-seat auditorium sits in the center of the plaza. Serving as a gathering place for the scientific community and the larger public, the auditorium accommodates both scientific lectures and unamplified chamber music. Enveloped in an origami-like folded plaster wall, the interior allows for the maximum dispersion of unamplified sound. State-of the art mechanical systems are acoustically isolated, resulting in a virtually noise free environment. The space is frequently used for musical concerts by outside groups. Single-storey laboratories form the wall of the south side of the plaza. A continuous etched glass window faces the plaza. Light enters while privacy is maintained. Offices are arranged behind the glass. The wet heavy labs, located behind the office and below grade, flank either side of a corridor. Entrances and meeting spaces are strategically placed where the laboratory building bends. 

Neurosciences Institute

Philharmonic Hall, its home is an iconic structure of travertine and transparency, with the concert shell in its interior.The Hall has gone through multiple renovations over the decades,&nbsp;with efforts made to address acoustical challenges amongst other&nbsp;issues as well as to reconfigure&nbsp;the public spaces to inject new life into the building, to be experienced inside and out.

David Geffen Hall

The original building was renovated into the Art Museum at St Joseph's University

The Barnes Foundation is a complicated story with a happy ending. &nbsp;Albert C. Barnes took his fortune in pharmaceuticals and decided to buy art. &nbsp;With the help of a friend who was an artist he amassed one of the best and largest collection of European modernist works. &nbsp;He was not a fan of the art museums of the period, so he decided to create his own and created an educational foundation. &nbsp;He commissioned on of the best Philadelphia architects of the period, Paul Phillippe Cret to create a building in his arboretum in a suburb of Philadelphia. &nbsp;He had very strong ideas and very eclectic ones about how the art should be displayed and juxtaposed the paintings with medieval hardware. &nbsp;Typically an art museum filled with masterpieces carefully hangs them along white walls so that each work can be properly appreciated. &nbsp;He died tragically in a car accident in 1951 and the problems began. &nbsp;For the art lovers (of which Philadelphia has many) vsiting the collection became a logistical nightmare of securing an appointment months in advance to view it. &nbsp;For the residents of Lower Merion who preferred a quieter lifestyle. &nbsp;Philadelphia has a ‘museum mile’ along Benjamin Franklin Parkway that extends from the Art Museum to City Hall; the obvious solution would be to relocate the museum to this prime spot. &nbsp;Since it violated Barnes will, there was at least one contentious court case with a significant settlement. &nbsp;The result is a spectacular new building which recreates the eclectic galleries of the original museum. &nbsp;The former museum has been redesigned into the Frances Maguire Art Museum and St Joseph's University has a well funded art education and horticultural program.

Frances M. Maguire Art Museum at Saint Joseph’s University

Barnes Foundation

 Tod Williams and Billie Tsien founded their eponymous New York architecture office in 1986. Their studio focuses on work for institutions, including schools, museums, and not-for-profits - organizations committed to benefit and inspiring their surrounding communities. Notable projects include The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, the Asia Society Hong Kong Center, and in 2016 they were selected as the architects for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Over the past three decades, their dedication to this work has received numerous national and international citations including the National Medal of the Arts from President Obama and the Firm of the Year Award from the American Institute of Architects. They are deeply committed to making a better world through architecture. 

Founded in 1886, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is one of the premier Jewish institutions in the United States. To foster dialogue with a broader community, JTS sought to consolidate their holdings and reimagine their cloistered campus to be more open and inviting. The renovated and expanded campus now features a 208 seat auditorium, refreshed courtyard, new library with rare books collection, cafeteria, dormitory, and Moadon student-run space all connected by a central Light Court.

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

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