NEW CONSTRUCTION / MERIT

Entry Name: Wilson Performing Arts Center, Red Oak, IA
Firm: BVH Architects
Owner: Performing Arts and Education Association of Southwest Iowa
Photographer: Tom Kessler

Situated at the outskirts of a Midwestern town, this performing arts center contextually succeeds both as a daytime scale appropriate to its industrial neighborhood and in nighttime contrast with an extroverted façade. Secondary facades quietly reflect the adjacent buildings while its public face, fronting a main highway, exhibits large vertical windows as its iconic billboard. Extension is communicated by the building’s marquee; a strong horizontal motion realized in steel stretching across the main entrance. At night the marquee lights continue this gesture, projecting beyond the physical steel, bathing the tree grove in light.
The main house seats 258 patrons on a raked floor with the back of the house comprising state of the art theater infrastructure with a full stage, fly loft, a workshop, dressing rooms, a green room, and storage spaces.

Jury Comments: Creating a relationship between an introverted program and its context is difficult at best, but the design effortlessly accomplishes this by using a collection of spaces that builds into an elegant entry sequence. We greatly appreciate being able to understand the design through a clear and well defined parti.