Design for World Trade Center performing arts venue unveiled

The cube-shaped design for a performing arts venue planned for the site of the 9/11 terror attacks, scheduled to open in 2020, has been unveiled in New York.

Located between One World Trade Center and the memorial plaza, the Ronald O Perelman Performing Arts Center will be made of translucent marble and glass.

The 90,000-square foot building will have three auditoriums and will host the annual Tribeca Film Festival.

Barbra Streisand will serve as board chair, officials announced on Thursday.

The US singer said the centre would "vibrate with theatre, music, dance and film and bring life to this hallowed ground".

According to its architect, Joshua Prince-Ramus, the three-level building will resemble a "mystery box" and will light up like a paper lantern at night.

The rooms and halls will have moveable walls able capable of creating up to 11 configurations, the largest of which will hold up to 1,200 people.

Maggie Boepple, president and director of the venue, said the space would be both a "birthplace" for new shows and a local community centre.

Estimated to cost $250m (£188m), the centre still requires $75m (£56.3m) in donations.

Its namesake, billionaire businessman Ronald Perelman, donated $75m to the project in June.

A performing arts centre was a key feature of Daniel Libeskind's 2003 master plan for the site's redevelopment.

According to the New York Times, though, "that element languished, becoming one of the last big pieces of unfinished business in rebuilding the World Trade Center."

A previous design, by the architect Frank Gehry, was shelved in 2014.

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