A New Home for Modern Dance

Rehearsal and Performance Space for Martha Graham Dance Company

MBB is working with the Martha Graham Dance Company to create a new, enlarged headquarters and rehearsal-performance space in Times Square.  As reported in the New York Times, our design calls for carving out several large, open studio spaces beneath the sawtooth skylights of the historic Paramount Theatre Building. Our team took inspiration from Graham’s choreography of ‘contraction and release’ in sequencing the rhythm of spaces.

Martha Graham Dance Company is the oldest modern dance troupe in New York City. The renovation project coincides with the company’s 100th anniversary.

As an adaptive reuse project, the design removes non-original floors of the 1920s building to restore the soaring proportions of 11th- and 12th-floor spaces that were originally built for theatrical productions.  The flexible new studio spaces will host the company’s in-house “studio series” monthly performance events. The design also includes new reception, office, and visitor spaces.