Identity - The Fedder Building

An SVG file, showing a white trace of the identifying details of building 1 of the Fedder building, transparent over the site wide background fill in a warm, very dark grey.

The main entry to the building, comprised of black plaster and black cinder block walls, topping a black tile floor, and black doors. In the foreground, directly next to the doormat after the entrance, is a long wooden island table, stacked with flyers promoting events existing within the building. In the background of the image, is a large yellow neon sign reading 'Better at the Fedder'. — Main Entry

The Turf room is a large square room with bright green Astroturf, and a lacrosse goal at one end, with a spray painted goal line around it, and a baseline at the other end. 3 walls are white with black feet, and the furthest wall is black. The ceiling is about 20 feet tall, with a black ceiling with black concrete beams and red pipes. Mesh curtains cover the entrance and exits of the room, which there are two. — Turf Room

The loading dock is an incredibly large f-shaped hallway-room with 12 foot ceiling, concrete floors, and several garage doors and industrial sliding doors, most of which over 9 feet by 9 feet. The ceiling is supported by white mushroom columns, and a vintage pickup truck indicative of the auto-shop located in the loading dock. Pallets and scrap boards adorn the empty spaces in this massive room, oil stains, scuffs and cracks define it's multi-purpose nature. — Loading Dock

The Lounge Area shares a very similar visual identity to the Event Space, as it's branched off of the same room. Fleeting crimson tarpaulins are rigged to the white I beam posts, though they are not painted with yellow blocks. There is much more seating in this area, with couches and coffee tables, and the area where these fixtures sit are enclosed in their own area by means of a large mesh curtain. The far wall is highlighted by an art-moderne style horizontal band window, and the ceiling supports a cast metal chandelier. Below it, it the center of the the non-mesh curtained room sits a black cafe cart with beverage materials. — Lounge Area

The Composition

The Fedder Building is a Maker’s Campus with over 180 tenants in the Neighborhood of the Arts in Rochester, New York. Constructed in 1915, the building initially housed roasting equipment, packing machinery, and canning lines by means of Beech-Nut Packing Co. Over the course of their stay in the building, the company pioneered a vacuum-sealing production technique for their jarred goods; the campus’s fortified skeleton played a protean role through its ability to support the heavy apparatuses. It played an even more essential role in the years following, as several Beech-Nut factories shifted into packing rations for World War II soldiers- 1237 E Main St being well positioned to contribute. After merging with Life Savers in 1956 and Squibb in 1968, the Beech-Nut company began gradually phasing out its smaller satellite factories, leading the facility to be decommissioned in the early 1970s. Adopting its name from the R.P. Fedder Industrial Company soon after, some of the structure’s retrofitted rooms were prime real estate for warehousing and manufacturing.

Building three (Upper left) + Beech-Nut advertisements. Building three is an orchidaceous store front in a Palladian layout, with concrete stairs centered between luscious greenery, and concrete pilasters outlining brick walls and factory windows. A large sign tops the building, reading: Beech-Nut Packing Co. The left most advertisement is on a bright red background, showing a 'Beech-Nut Circus' bus, filled with fanciful figures and various gum products. Peppermint, spearmint pepsin, and oralgene chewing gums. The right most advertisement shows a cartoon parade in a downtown location, with sprawling crowds on either side of the march, and giant beechnut products stampeding down the central causeway, supported by circus marchers. The products include the aforementioned gums, as well as lime, lemon and orange candy drops. — Building three (Upper left) + Beech-Nut advertisements

Gradually cycling into the current ownership, today the building retains an industrial accent: sound-dampening concrete walls, hulking mushroom columns, massive factory windows, and a colossal freight elevator—making it a multifarious tool for local creatives. A bodacious lineup, tenants include artists, designers, photographers, videographers, radio stations, wood and metal workers, accessory makers, martial artists, wrestlers, furniture restorers, netmakers, and more, spread across all five storys of the building. The density of makers encourages cross-pollination, and collaboration is made easy, activated through open house events in the building’s communal areas such as a turf room, event space, and lounge room.

Event Space, 20 ft tall ceilings with white and yellow accented I beams, adorned with fleeting crimson tarpaulins, cast metal chandeliers, various qualities of wall textures, ad hoc small murals, decals and various seating options. — Event Space

A malleable concrete metabolism, the Fedder Building evolves with every new tenant. Visiting us, you’ll witness a neighborhood of open doors and a cacophony of ideas, whether they echo from garrets or grand workshops. With thousands of square feet consistently tailored to best suit the will of our inhabitants, there is a corporeal feeling of collaborative innovation in our halls. Things are rarely final here, as the buzzing hum of ingenuity powers the identity of the structure itself. Whether you are visiting or weaving into our ecosystem, we hope you can experience the Fedder as we approach the 125-year anniversary.

– RC