The Shed

The Shed is a new cultural institution of and for the 21st century. They produce and welcome innovative art and ideas, across all forms of creativity, to build a shared understanding of the rapidly changing world and a more equitable society. The Shed’s Bloomberg Building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Lead Architect, and Rockwell Group, Collaborating Architect, is an innovative 200,000-square-foot structure that physically transforms to support artists’ most ambitious ideas. The McCourt, The Shed’s most iconic space, is formed when the movable outer shell is deployed over the adjoining plaza to create a 17,000-square-foot light-, sound-, and temperature-controlled hall for large-scale performances, installations, and events. It can accommodate a seated audience of approximately 1,200 (900 in the lower McCourt) and a standing audience of 1,500. The Level 2 and Level 4 Galleries, totaling 25,000 square feet, are expansive, column-free, museum-quality spaces. The Kenneth C. Griffin Theater, on Level 6, can seat 500 people and be subdivided into more intimate spaces to suit the needs of a range of productions and installations. The Tisch Skylights and Lab, on the top floor, are striking spaces for events, rehearsals, and artist development that seat approximately 450 people, with standing room for 750. The Plaza can be used as an outdoor public space for programming when the movable shell is retracted to nest over the base building. It features The Shed’s first visual art commission, IN FRONT OF ITSELF, a large-scale, site-specific work by Lawrence Weiner fabricated with custom paving stones. The movable shell travels on a double-wheel track based on gantry crane technology commonly found in shipping ports and railway systems. A rack-and-pinion drive moves the shell forward and back on four single-axle and two double-axle bogie wheels that measure six feet in diameter; the deployment of the shell takes approximately five minutes. The exposed steel diagrid frame of the movable shell is clad in translucent pillows of durable and lightweight Teflon-based polymer, called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE). With the thermal properties of insulating glass at a fraction of the weight, the translucent ETFE allows light to pass through and can withstand hurricane-force winds. Measuring almost 70 feet (21 meters) in length in some areas, The Shed’s ETFE panels are some of the largest ever produced.