Slideshow: architect Frank Gehry has inserted a theatre into the base of tower in New York City (photographs by James Ewing/OTTO).

The new Signature Center, which opened earlier this year, contains three auditoriums, the largest of which seats up to 299 spectators and has the same layout as the theatre company's previous home in the same neighbourhood.

Overlapping plywood plates give the walls a textured surface designed to enhance the acoustics of the room.

More plywood panels cover surfaces and balconies in the 199-seat theatre, but here they are stained dark brown.

The third performance space is a rectangular courtyard theatre and the building also contains two large rehearsal studios.

The Signature Center was first established in the 1990s and had initially planned to relocate to a new home on the Ground Zero site, but was forced by budget cuts to choose an alternative location beneath a residential and hotel tower on 42nd Street.

At the end of last year Gehry invited some of the world’s leading architects and designers to form a strategic alliance. Read more about it on Dezeen Wire.

Other Gehry-designed buildings we've featured on Dezeen include a skyscraper with a rippled facade and an orchestral academy.

See all our stories about Frank Gehry »

See more stories about theatres »

Photography is by James Ewing/OTTO.