Allentown Arts Park Pavilion

The Allentown Arts Park project is envisioned as a revitalized and reimagined use of a current passive green space to celebrate the City’s artistic heritage in downtown Allentown, Pennsylvania. Bordered by the Allentown Museum of Art, Miller Symphony Hall, and the Baum School of Art, the green space also acts as a starting point to the City’s Arts Walk by highlighting a corridor of artistic history and culture. This project provides a lively Park renovation and proposes a new structure to the existing Arts Park which adds to its ethos of celebrating arts and culture by activating the green area into a performing arts space.

The proposed Arts Park improvements include extensive new landscaping and a new pavilion which serves as a band shell and support space to host local and regional music and theater events and performances. The Arts Park space is meant to be responsive to the seasons and provides accommodations for various Park events from ticketed concerts to free public performances and informal gatherings.

The overall design of the curvilinear band shell itself is derived from the contextual urban fabric of Allentown; drawing inspiration from sheet music scores in response to the Symphony’s proximity, to a piece of drapery reminiscent of the large textile collection at the nearby Allentown Art Museum and the region’s silk mill history. The use of laminated wood to achieve this form has been selected both for its flexibility and its efforts to support sustainability as a renewable green product. The curvilinear form arcs over the stage providing shelter and shade and then curves back in plan enclosing a performance “Green Room” and ancillary support facilities. A suspended flexible truss structure over the stage allows customized audio equipment and lighting to be set up for each performance.

Project: Allentown Arts Park Pavilion

Location: Allentown, Pennsylvania

Client: City Center Allentown

Project Size: 2,500 sf

Project Team:
Atkin Olshin Schade Architects (Architect)

Jon Morrison, PE (Consultant Structural Engineer)

Acentech (AV/Acoustic Consultants)

Omnes Studio (Landscape Architect)

North Star Construction Management (General Contractor)