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Take a peek at NLÉ Works's Prelude to The Shed

Shacked Up

Take a peek at NLÉ Works's Prelude to The Shed

The Shed, DS+R and the Rockwell Group’s slick ETFE-padded arts building in Hudson Yards is a solid year away from hosting performances. In the meantime, The Shed’s curators are teasing the public with Prelude to The ShedPrelude, for short—a temporary pavilion for dance, theater, and art right across the street from its still-under-construction sibling. Today The Architect’s Newspaper got a first look at the structure and its inaugural exhibit on the Fun Palace, the conceptual 1960s theater that inspired The Shed.

(Audrey Wachs/AN)
The 10th Avenue plaza is filled with movable furniture. (Audrey Wachs/AN)

While the Shed was conceived by two large New York firms, Prelude was designed by Kunlé Adeyemi of Amsterdam- and Lagos-based NLÉ Works in collaboration with Tino Sehgal, an artist from Berlin who’s also one of the event’s programmers. The building, a reconfigured steel shed crossed with a party limo, is separated from 10th Avenue by an open plaza and a short flight of black stairs. To give performers an abundance of flex space, the front entrance is completely open to the elements, but the approach is staggered by oversized, movable Chesterfield chairs. Ultra-cushy seating wraps the interior and most of Prelude‘s exterior, a must for a initial 13-day free events program that’s sold out its entire run. Its roofline is defined by a simple gable, a humble dwelling amid the towers of Hudson Yards.

The structure backs onto a site that feels like an afterthought. A café is connected to Prelude by a standard-issue wheelchair ramp, and from its slightly elevated perch, visitors can gaze across a gravel lot where scattered potted plants suggest an attempt at landscape design. REX’s crystalline 5 Manhattan West and Hudson Yards beam reflections onto each other from across the avenue, disorienting the eye a hundred feet above ground level. Blessedly, there are public restrooms.

(Audrey Wachs/AN)
Visitors gaze at a model of Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood’s Fun Palace. (Audrey Wachs/AN)

Prelude‘s seven programmers are engaging the public beyond architecture, and a packed events schedule promises to keep the space brimming with visitors. Today, volunteers stood around hospital carts filled with Hudson Yards ephemera, part of A stroll though the fun palace, an exhibit on Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood’s never-built idea for a democratic performance and community gathering space.

For the next two weeks, the programmers have tapped artists across media for a series of public performances. Each afternoon into evening, choreographer William Forsythe’s Pas de Deux Cent Douze alternates with Sehgal’s This variation. Beginning Thursday, Prelude will host evening shows by artists across genres (Atlanta’s ABRA kicks off the festivities her signature take on R&B).

(Audrey Wachs/AN)
View of Prelude looking south (Audrey Wachs/AN)

Prelude‘s pre-opening program will run through May 13. More information on hours, performances, and events can be found here.

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