New Venue for Issue Project Room

If you’ve been following the Issue Project Room, a nonprofit arts presenter, you’ll be happy to hear the latest news.   After winning a rent-free, 20 year lease for their new location, they are finally about to enjoy it at 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn. Their inaugural event will be a staging of the Dutch new-music festival called Gaudeamus Muziekweek after they move in on January 25th.

 

Stunning New Space

The stunning space on Livingston Street is set in a Beaux Arts-style building that was desinged in 1926 by the firm McKim, Mead & White. Issue Project Room has been hard at work with its fundraising campaign, trying to raise the $3.7 million that they needed to move into the amazing space.

The interior needed renovations to enhance the listening quality since it includes 40 foot-high vaulted ceilings.   As Ed Patuto, the executive director of the organization explained,

“We’ll have everything from black-box capability to a complete white box: We can put visuals anywhere around the room for a completely immersive environment.”

2011 Activities

This past year alone, Issue Project Room had 200 performances and 30 commissions in its Old American Can Factory location in Gowanus.   The new space, however, will be perfectly situated in the area that is fast becoming a Brooklyn arts corridor.   It includes the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Mark Morris Dance Center and Roulette, and others.

In the coming year, they will be testing a range of acoustic treatments to see which work best.   They have been working with architects Dan Wood and Amale Andraos of WORK AC and with acousticians from Arup.   As Mr. Patuto explained, “There will be no fixed stage, no fixed seating. The experience of coming to Issue Project Room will be as unpredictable as the performances themselves.”