The Architecture of EMPAC: The Tangible and the Tantalizing - Hardcover

Mark Mistur; Johannes Goebel; Shirley Ann Jackson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0578072408 ISBN 13: 9780578072401

Publisher: Oro Editions, 2014

Synopsis

EMPAC is a building like no other. The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Center (EMPAC) is an extraordinary instrument for artists and researchers alike. With its concert hall, a theater and experimental black box studios, EMPAC bridges the ever expanding potential of digital technology with the most refined details for acoustics, visual production and performing arts. EMPAC is designed, without compromise, for technology and the human experience, ranging from performances and new productions in time-based arts to the creation and navigation of large-scale immersive environments by researchers and engineers. On the campus of the oldest technological university in the U.S., the vision of EMPAC synthesizes a grand architectural gesture with the complex requirements of a true interdisciplinary enterprise for the 21st century.

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson's foreword describes a vision for a 21st-century research university and EMPAC as one instrument to enhance the culture of a polytechnic institute and to provoke innovation. An essay from EMPAC director Johannes Goebel focuses on the human dimension and the senses and the frontier of time-based arts. Essays by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, acoustician R. Lawrence Kirkegaard, theatre design consultant Joshua Dachs and Grimshaw Architects partner involved in the project from beginning to end William Horgan, each examine the question of performance-based design integration and tell the stories of innovations that resulted from their various important points of view. The building and the book do more than promise results. Being in operation for two years at the conclusion of writing the Architecture of EMPAC, the book concludes with appendix complete with the events it has been home to, the artists who have been in residence and the new productions to date, with the opening concert, excerpts from the opening festival, a building light installation, plus a time-lapsed movie of the construction included in a DVD.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Mistur, AIA, Associate Professor and Associate Dean at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's School of Architecture. His leadership in educational initiatives dedicated to the integration of architecture and engineering practices from the earliest design phase as a marker of best practice and progenitor of the most progressive 21st-century architecture was awarded an NCARB prize for Creative Integration of the Academy and Practice. Mistur made himself aware of the project's bold motivations by spending time on site weekly over the seven year period of its making. Mark Mistur resides in Troy, New York. Johannes Goebel, Professor in the School of Architecture and in the Arts Department at Rensselaer, developed the programme for EMPAC to enable the programmatic goals, while establishing its artistic and research directions. He has worked as composer, producer, curator, teacher and consultant in the field of music, performing and arts and technology and was founding director of the Institute for Music and Acoustics at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A theoretical physicist, she was chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (1995-1999). She is a member of President Obama's President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Dr. Jackson holds an S.B. in physics and a Ph.D. in theoretical elementary particle physics, both from M.I.T.

From the Inside Flap

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson's foreword describes a vision for a 21st-century research university and EMPAC as one instrument to enhance the culture of a polytechnic institute and to provoke innovation. An essay from EMPAC director Johannes Goebel focuses on the human dimension and the senses and the frontier of time-based arts. Essays by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, acoustician R. Lawrence Kirkegaard, theater design consultant Joshua Dachs and Grimshaw Architects' partner involved in the project from beginning to end William Horgan, each examine the question of performance- based design integration and tell the stories of innovations that resulted from their various important points of view. The building and the book do more than promise results. Being in operation for two years at the conclusion of writing the Architecture of EMPAC, the book concludes with appendix complete with the events it has been home to, the artists who have been in residence and the new productions to date, with the opening concert, excerpts from the opening festival, a building light installation plus a time-lapsed movie of the construction included in a DVD.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oro Editions
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0578072408
• ISBN 13: 9780578072401
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256