Time Warner Building

ABOUT

To match the scale of the enclosed volumes within and restore a sense of the urban street grid, JCDA conceived the largest cable-net wall ever built: its width matching the width of 59th Street.

JCDA, working with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, developed a complete scheme for the atrium enclosure at the Time Warner Building on Columbus Circle, New York. The complex is comprised of two towers separated by an east-facing atrium and subdivided horizontally into the main public entrance and retail space at the lower levels and the performance lobby for Jazz at Lincoln Center at the upper levels.

Two cable-net walls are suspended from a single inclined truss at the top – the outer one anchored at the top cord, the inner at the bottom. The exterior surface presents a unified highly transparent pane of glass, while the interior inclined cable-net structure acoustically insulates Jazz at Lincoln Center from unwanted sound, while maintaining complete transparency to the street below and the city beyond, providing the audience with direct views of Central Park and 59th Street.

The ‘Time Warner Building’ was shortlisted for the Bombay Sapphire Award in 2005.