The Pavilion, the legendary dance club in The Pines section of Fire Island that was destroyed by a fire back in November, will be redesigned by New York’s prominent Diller Scofidio + Renfro architecture firm.
The firm has already transformed New York’s gallery district in Chelsea with their really great renovation of the High Line from a derelict stretch of train track into a serene public gathering place.
Fire Island has a long history as a summer retreat for gay artists and was the site of the first LGBT artist residency last summer. Charles Renfro, who has spent several summers on Fire Island (we profiled him here), told The New York Times, “We’re rethinking it as the Theater of the Pines, a proper name. It’s about the comings and goings, the glances, the meetings: all of those things that are particular to the Pines.”
Seth Weissman, a partner at FIP Ventures, which owns 80 percent of The Pines commercial district and commissioned the redesign, said “the fire handed us an unexpected opportunity to create something far better than what was destroyed.”
