The 250000-sq-ft strange Jersey Pe...

The 250000-sq-ft strange Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark is a sprawling ruckus of transparent cylinders, brick arches, broad rectangles and carbonized iron canopies, all set to the rhymes and scale of its gritty, urban surroundings.

A one-note design wouldn't have done the trick here. As an instrument of urban renewal, the $90 million multipurpose theater wanted to open its arms to the city of Newark, and its architect, the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Barton Myers Associates, accordingly avoided the alien monolithic forms that are all too typical of this genre