Zankel Hall provides multiple configurations for performances, rehearsals and educational functions and is designed to accommodate Carnegie Hall’s traditional, contemporary and experimental music performances.

As an integral part of the project team, Apeiro Design (Auerbach Pollock Friedlander) advised on public and performance space design while focusing on the integration of theatrical systems with the hall’s architecture. These systems – automated stage machinery, theatrical lighting, and performance audio, video and communication systems – form a flexible infrastructure that supports the Hall’s broad programming mission.

Performance and architectural lighting, projection systems and loudspeakers are suspended from twenty-one motorized trusses. Nine lifts support the movement of seats on modular air caster platforms to configure the stage and audience.

Apeiro Design (Auerbach Glasow) also provided architectural lighting design for the hall, exterior canopy, lobbies and dressing rooms. Reminiscent of lighting in Carnegie Hall’s historic canopies, the exterior canopy maintains the spirit of the period façade, while the lobbies display more contemporary lighting. Architectural features are highlighted. Notably, lighting for the canted elliptical wall rising between mezzanine and parterre lobbies creates a luminous environment, obscuring the fact that one is below street level. The lighting for the lobbies and audience chamber is controlled by a programmable centralized system linked to the theatrical system.