Best of 2005 Awards

P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center

Award of Merit: Rehabilitation and Restoration

The P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in the Long Island City section of Queens offers emerging artists unique gallery space in an early 20th Century former New York City public school.

The center, which has been affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art since 2000, houses cutting-edge modern art both inside and out. During the summers, a jury selects one young architect to install a massive architectural structure to celebrate the unique urban space - integrating the annual installations into the building for its thousands of visitors to explore.

But the city-owned structure was crumbling in recent years. The city's Department of Design and Construction, acting as developer, commissioned an $11.8 million repair project that broke ground in 2002 and finished this spring.

Built in 1893 in the Romanesque Revival style, with a wing added in 1906, P.S. 1 has highly articulated street façades with a bluestone and schist foundation, Philadelphia pressed brick walls, decorative terra cotta ornament, and slate roof. The building's courtyard has common brick walls, concrete steps to the first floor, and 15-ft. high concrete walls.

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The building was already showing wear and tear in 1976 when the Institute of Art and Urban Resources, a nonprofit that transforms abandoned and underutilized properties into artist spaces, began using it. A year later, the building underwent a massive interior renovation.

Even as the indoor and outdoor exhibition space became more popular with art enthusiasts, the exterior envelope of the school continued to deteriorate. In 2001, the city launched emergency repair work to keep masonry and windows from falling off the building, restore the damaged timber roof, and clean the deteriorated façade to recapture the detailed ornamental work.

Soon, the more extensive repair project was under way. The project team installed 200 squares of new roofing; completed structural repairs to the timber attic framing; fixed and restored the brick, stone, and terra cotta; and installed more than 300 new metal windows with UV protection and interior shades.

The construction only minimally disrupted operations at the museum, which even made the work part of a display by attaching LED lighting to the scaffolding around the exterior façade. Now that the exterior work is complete, another smaller project to illuminate the newly restored façade is in the works.

Key Players

Developer: N.Y.C. Department of Design and Construction

Architect: Wank Adams Slavin Associates

Construction Manager: Bovis Lend Lease

Project Sponsor: N.Y.C. Department of Cultural Affairs

Structural Engineer: Severud Associates Consulting Engineers

Roofing, Masonry, Structural: Nicholson & Galloway

Façade Preservation, Flat Roofing: Bri-Den Construction

Flat Roofing: National Roofing

Electrical: Egg Electric

Sidewalk Replacement: Navillus Contracting

Lighting Designer: L'Observatoire International Lighting Designers