BEAUX ARTS BALL 2012: TENDER

Above: Former main banking hall of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, One Hanson Place, Brooklyn. Courtesy of Skylight One Hanson.

The Architectural League of New York will hold its annual Beaux Arts Ball on Saturday, September 22, in the 63-foot high former main banking hall of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank in Downtown Brooklyn. Emerging architects SOFTlab, in collaboration with Natasha Jen of Pentagram, will design the environment for the eveningʼs festivities, which will include a unique sound installation in the bankʼs former vault by Dave Rife of Arup. Their design will be shaped by this yearʼs theme, “Tender,” which draws its inspiration from the buildingʼs history and plays with the wordʼs changing meanings when used as different parts of speech: as noun (forms of currency, legal tender), as verb (to offer or propose), and as adjective (soft or delicate in quality). Since the Leagueʼs revival of the event in 1990, the Beaux Arts Ball has become the premier annual party of the architecture and design community in New York with over 1,000 architects, designers, artists, and their friends attending. The Beaux Arts Ball helps support the programs of the Architectural League. BEAUX ARTS BALL 2012: TENDER Saturday, September 22, 2012 Williamsburgh Savings Bank One Hanson Place Brooklyn, New York 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Environment by SOFTlab, with Natasha Jen, Pentagram Sound installation by Dave Rife, Arup Music by Justin Carter (Mister Saturday Night) Drinks and light fare Tickets are $75 in advance; $100 at the door. Tickets and a full list of this yearʼs Benefit Committee are available on the Leagueʼs website, www.archleague.org, or by phone at 212.753.1722 x10. ABOUT THE ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE The Architectural League nurtures excellence in architecture, design, and urbanism. Through lectures, symposia, exhibitions, competitions, publications, and digital communications, the League creates a lively independent forum for artistic and intellectual work and helps shape the future by provoking thinking about the critical design and building issues of our time. www.archleague.org ABOUT THE BEAUX ARTS BALL The Beaux Arts Ball was first held in New York City in 1913 by the Society of Beaux Arts Architects in what the Times described as “the most artistic entertainment of the kind ever given in New York.” The Architectural League revived the tradition in 1990 as an annual benefit for its ongoing programs and exhibitions. Located each year in a different architecturally significant venue, the League also commissions one or more emerging architects to create an environment based on the location and theme. Past venues have included the United Nations, the Seagram Building, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Tobacco Warehouse in DUMBO, Governors Island, and the Old American Can Factory in Gowanus. ABOUT THE WILLIAMSBURGH SAVINGS BANK Designed by Halsey, McCormack & Helmer and completed on May 1, 1929, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank at One Hanson Place is an icon of the Brooklyn skyline. The main floor of the building was occupied by a succession of banks until the early 2000s, with the tower above providing rental offices to a variety of small businesses, including enough dental offices that it was dubbed the “Mecca of dentistry.” Though it lost its claim as the tallest building in the borough in 2010, the four-faced clock at its top remains one of the largest in the world. The Beaux Arts Ball will be held in the 63-foot high former main banking hall, one of New Yorkʼs most famous interiors, a space brimming with a mix of Art Deco and Neo-Romanesque details and iconography that celebrate the buildingʼs former depositorsʼ “industry and thrift.” ABOUT SOFTlab SOFTlab is a design studio based in New York City. The studio was created by Michael Szivos shortly after receiving a graduate degree in architecture from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. The studio has since been involved in the design and production of projects across almost every medium, from digitally fabricated large-scale sculpture, to interactive design, to immersive digital video installations. As a studio, SOFTlab, embraces projects through a mix of research and ideas. The studio regularly invests in projects that require significant research and experimentation. The constraints of these projects are treated as opportunities and tested through a collaborative studio environment with the hopes of solving typical problems in new ways, with new tools. Through the studioʼs unique blend of backgrounds as designers, artists, architects and educators we are able to approach every project from a fresh perspective to create rich spatial, graphic, interactive and visual experiences. By mixing research, creativity and technology with a strong desire to make working fun, SOFTlab attempts to create new and unique experiences. www.softlabnyc.com