The legendary Philip Johnson was behind the structures of the New York Pavilion for the 1964 Worlds Fair Exhibit in Queens, two of which have stood abandoned for forty years as the rest of the fair’s site turned into ruins. The third, the open-air cylindrical Theaterama, however, has been hosting up to 300 performances a year. When Caples Jefferson Architects were brought in to design a new home for Queens Theater-in-the-Park, to house offices and a cabaret for 90 people and a reception hall for 600, the team walked a fine line between paying tribute to Johnsons’ design and doing something that was original and relevant to today’s world and the uses of the theater.
“We tried to work with forms that were not an imitation of what was there, but playing in that spirit with circular forms, and working with great variety, to add to the variety created by Johnson,” says Sara Caples, principal at Caples Jefferson Architects.