Poe Park

The Poe Park Visitor Center, located on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and designed for the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, is an educational facility to support the surrounding community. The 2,700-square-foot building houses exhibition and assembly space, an information desk, learning areas, and support spaces for Poe Park. The north end of the structure features a large window that frames a view of Poe Cottage, Edgar Allan Poe’s last residence.

The Center orients visitors within Poe Park, directing them northward toward historic Poe Cottage or southward to an eighty-year-old bandstand that anchors the opposite end of the park. The building is composed of two separate volumes that slide into each other to express the state of flux that is characteristic of many of Poe’s stories.

The main entrance slips into a dramatically elongated interior open space. The striking roof profile, a form suspended between ascent and descent, evokes a sensation of mystery and suspense. Similar to Poe’s use of the uncanny in his writings, the building design incorporates materials in an unusual manner: the dark gray slate shingles used as wall cladding are most commonly used as roofing material.