EMPAC is a building like no other. The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Center (EMPAC) is an extraordinary instrument for artists and researchers alike. With its concert hall, a theater and experimental black box studios, EMPAC bridges the ever-expanding potential of digital technology with the most refined details for acoustics, visual production and performing arts. EMPAC is designed, without compromise, for technology and the human experience, ranging from performances and new productions in time-based arts to the creation and navigation of large-scale immersive environments by researchers and engineers. On the campus of the oldest technological university in the U.S., the vision of EMPAC synthesizes a grand architectural gesture with the complex requirements of a true interdisciplinary enterprise for the 21st century. Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson's foreword describes a vision for a 21st-century research university and EMPAC as one instrument to enhance the culture of a polytechnic institute and to provoke innovation. An essay from EMPAC director Johannes Goebel focuses on the human dimension and the senses and the frontier of time-based arts. Essays by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, acoustician R. Lawrence Kirkegaard, theater design consultant Joshua Dachs and Grimshaw Architects' partner involved in the project from beginning to end William Horgan, each examine the question of performance- based design integration and tell the stories of innovations that resulted from their various important points of view. The building and the book do more than promise results. Being in operation for two years at the conclusion of writing the Architecture of EMPAC, the book concludes with appendix complete with the events it has been home to, the artists who have been in residence and the new productions to date, with the opening concert, excerpts from the opening festival, a building light installation plus a time-lapsed movie of the construction included in a DVD.
Mark Mistur is an Architect, Associate Professor and the Associate Dean at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture. His leadership in educational initiatives dedicated to the integration of architecture and engineering practices from the earliest design phase as a marker of best practice and progenitor of the most progressive 21st century architecture was awarded an NCARB prize for Creative Integration of the Academy and Practice in 2005. In pursuit of exemplary architecture driven by the complimentary marriage of design and performance based criteria, he began the project of tracking the design and construction of EMPAC from its inception, interviewing the designers, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and his team, acoustician Larry Kirkegaard and his collaborators, engineers Craig Schwitter and Denzil Gallagher at Buro Happold and theater designer Joshua Dachs. His interviews also included owner’s representative and EMPAC Director Johannes Goebel and various constructors at key project stages. As a faculty member under the presidency of Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, Mistur made himself aware of the project’s bold motivations and monitored the progress of the project by spending time on site weekly over the seven year period of its making. Mark Mistur resides in Troy, New York.
