
15
ANATOMY OF DESIGN
The mammoth typographic messages covering every exterior inch of the New
Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) school in Newark, New Jersey,
transform a former Episcopal rectory, with all the charm of a reform school,
from bleak house to billboard palace. Paula Scher of Pentagram/New York
created a typographic language composed of bold gothic and slab serif letters,
audacious graphic images, and stark primary colors, underscored by irony and
humor, to landmark what in 2000 was a new wellspring of cultural activity in
a city that had fallen on hard times. While applying typography to architecture
is not new—look to the inscriptions ...