This May, Creative Time returns to its roots downtown with the purchase of a new permanent office space at 59-61 East 4th Street.  The building is one of seven sold by the City in October 2005 to the non-profit cultural groups that long inhabited the block.  Now considered the East Fourth Street Cultural District, the block is home to 8 theater companies, 2 dance studios, a film workshop, a silkscreen design shop, and now Creative Time, NYC’s oldest and most adventurous public arts organization.  The office space is being designed by Work Architecture Company (WORK AC), the same architects designing Diane Von Fursternberg’s new NYC headquarters.

“Creative Time is thrilled to be moving back downtown to provide an anchor for the visual arts along with The New Museum and the growing number of gallery and performances spaces that are enlivening the neighborhood once again,” said Anne Pasternak, Creative Time President and Artistic Director. “This move stabilizes the organization and sets us on a new pace for growth, providing a financial asset for Creative Time, which had rented spaces over the past three decades.” The 1,700 square foot office space on 6E is stage one of the build-out; a second 1250 sf loft space purchased on the same floor, 6W, will be finished in 2009 to provide additional space for expansion and use by artists.

Creative Time has a long history of working in the East Village and Lower East Side with projects including Jenny Holzer’s For New York City Xenon Projections on Cooper Union and sites throughout NYC  (2004); Shimon Attie’s Between Dreams and History (1998) where lasers projected the memories of Lower East Side immigrants onto the buildings in the gentrifying neighborhood; Karen Finley’s Black Sheep (1990-91) a public poem installed in bronze on Houston and 1st Street; and many more past and future projects in development.

SUPPORT
Creative Time's new permanent home in the East Village is made possible through generous funding from Mayor Michael Bloomberg of the City of New York; Speaker Christine Quinn of the New York City Council; New York City funds administered through the Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; Creative Time Board of Directors including Philip and Shelley Aarons, Marie Douglas-David, Dana Farouki, Michael Gruenglas, Anthony J. Gordon, Peggy Jacobs, Jim Hodges, Martin Kace, Stephen Kramarsky, William Susman, David Wasserman, Amanda Weil, Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo and The Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, and May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc. Additional generous funding provided by Toby Devan Lewis, Marty Edelston, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and private donors.

ARCHITECTS
Creative Time’s new office space is designed by WORK AC headed by the husband and wife team of Amale Andraos and Dan Wood.  True to Creative Time’s spirit, the architects were introduced to the organization several years ago when they responded to an RFP for a public art project in Times Square with the Times Square Alliance. Balancing the needs of quiet thinking with collaborative creative planning for the team of 12 plus interns, the designers have taken the small space and created individual workspaces as well as our first professional conference room, and infused the office with color with a sky-blue resin floor and rose-colored sliding glass walls.

Since its founding in 2002, WORK AC has established itself with exciting international projects and design accolades, including the master plan for BAM Cultural District in Brookyln; Diane Von Furstenburg Headquarters in the Meatpacking District; city master plan for Akureyai in Iceland; Achrafieh Tower in Beirut, Lebanon; and more available on www.work.ac