Archinect - News

Frank Gehry talks to the LA Times about his ever-expanding vision for downtown Los Angeles

2024-04-12T17:50:00-04:00

Frank Gehry has provided some interesting comments to the LA Times to coincide with last week’s groundbreaking of the new Colburn Center in downtown Los Angeles, a vital lynchpin for the city’s post-COVID economic rebound.

Speaking on the record for an article to the paper’s business section, the 95-year-old Walt Disney Concert Hall designer told reporters about his still-expanding vision for the Grand Avenue corridor and beyond. The neighborhood has been a bit of an obsession of his since the end of the 1990s. Now, he says, "we still have work to do," adding that Little Tokyo, the Arts District, and other neighborhoods near Bunker Hill can and should have their own culture-backed transformations performed to facilitate a revival pushed by LA Mayor Karen Bass and other civic leaders.

The Broad museum also recently announced its own $100 million expansion plans. Our February preview of the new $335 milli...

Weiss/Manfredi, Hood Design Studio, and Moody Nolan to design new Amsterdam Avenue enhancements at Lincoln Center

2024-03-04T16:32:00-05:00

The new Amsterdam Avenue face of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will be designed by a team that includes Weiss/Manfredi, Hood Design Studio, and Moody Nolan, the beloved New York City cultural institution announced Monday.

The revitalization plan entails first a radical overhaul of Damrosch Park, which will be transformed into a dynamic new outdoor area for artistic performance and public gatherings. All three firms will impart their extensive experience in public realm designs that has recently included work on the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina and master plan of the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum in Los Angeles, respectively.

East side of Amsterdam Avenue, north of 62nd Street. Photo by Lawrence Sumulong

The design will take shape in response to a participatory planning process that drew the opinions of over 3,400 New Yorkers and surviving former residents of San Juan Hill, the neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the 14-y...

Frank Gehry's transformative Colburn School expansion will break ground in April

2024-02-20T19:14:00-05:00

An official groundbreaking date for Gehry Partners' $335 million Colburn School campus expansion has been set in downtown Los Angeles nearly six years after the project, now dubbed the Colburn Center, was announced in unison with collaborators Nagata Acoustics and TheaterDNA.

Site preparations and other preliminary construction will begin soon on the project, which will yield a total of 100,000 square feet worth of new performance, rehearsal, and education spaces, including a 1,000-seat concert hall, 100-seat theater, and four new dance studios. A special groundbreaking ceremony will take place on April 5th. The Colburn School says they expect construction to reach “substantial completion” by the end of Q1 2027.

View from Hill Street West towards the dance school entrance, dance studios, and public garden. Image: Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP

View East from Olive Street towards the entrance to the concert hall. Image: Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, L...

Steven Holl Architects reveals design for UPenn's new Student Performing Arts Center

2023-06-16T16:57:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects has unveiled renderings for their design of a new Student Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadephia.

The 37,300-square-foot structure will provide dedicated space for the performing arts at Penn and features a 300-seat proscenium theater, 125-seat studio theater, support spaces, and five rehearsal studios. The firm says they will pursue a LEED-silver certification for the project, which is sited on the northeast quadrant of the 1,085-acre campus as a new gateway between the university and city beyond.

“It is a great joy and honor to work on a performing arts center for the students of this historic university on such an important site,” Holl stated.

Image courtesy Steven Holl Architects

The design for the Center itself evokes the iconic nearby Fisher Fine Arts Library, repeating the use of red terracotta in its façade while separating the program into unique suspended trapezoidal masses that are meant to echo the move...

An open role for an auditorium designer offers a reflection on the architecture of performance

2022-11-23T12:04:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Net Zero Emerging Leaders Intern at LEVER Architecture, we are using our Job Highlights series this week to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an Auditorium and Seating Designer at Theatre Projects Consultants.

The full-time role, based in Norwalk, Connecticut, calls for a “creative, passionate auditorium and seating designer” with prior experience in theatrical and architectural design. Among the responsibilities for the role will be the design of room forms and seating layouts for a variety of projects, including performance venues, immersive environments, themed entertainment, education, corporate, and public gathering spaces.

Archinect Feature: Rex’s Brown University Performing Arts Center Shape-Shifts to Fill a Campus Void

Why the role interests us

Throughout the year, our editorial has seen how the design of performance venues and theaters involves careful engagement across a wide series of scales. On an urban scale, recen...

Maya Lin's second academic building will deliver a new performing arts studio to Bard College

2022-10-26T14:19:00-04:00

New York’s Bard College has announced a new commission from architect Maya Lin that will deliver a performing arts studio building to its 540-acre Annandale-on-Hudson campus.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer will team with Bialosky and acoustic specialists Charcoalblue to deliver a 25,000-square-foot space just west of the school’s Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center.

According to Bard, the sloping green-roofed building will contain five separate “state-of-the-art” studios connected by a series of “gathering hubs” that will host the school’s Fisher Center LAB residency program while doubling as a font for creative exploration for Bard students and faculty.

Lin is in the midst of a banner year following two high-profile commissions for the new Museum of Chinese in America in Manhattan and the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The school notes this will...

See inside DS+R's newly-opened Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross

2022-09-29T15:15:00-04:00

Diller Scofidio + Renfro has shared new photos of its just-opened Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The three-year, $110 million project culminated in an 84,000-square-foot multipurpose arts facility that houses a 400-seat proscenium theater, 200-seat studio space, and the relocated Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, which has garnered a reputation as one of the leading academic art museums in the country since first being founded in 1983.

Photo: Iwan Baan courtesy of DS+R

“The new Prior Performing Arts Center is an uncommon commons,” DS+R partner-in-charge Charles Renfro describes the project. “The building is uniquely perched on a hill overlooking the campus and Worcester, yet straddles the intersection of multiple cross-campus paths. While its world-class facilities provide a singular new home for Holy Cross's performing arts students, its atrium invites the broader student body to participate in casual and unscripted cr...

OMA's Taipei Performing Arts Center officially opens

2022-08-08T15:54:00-04:00

The new Taipei Performing Arts Center by OMA has opened to the public in the city’s Shilin Night Market. Led by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten, the project comprises three theaters: a spherical 800-seat Globe Playhouse, a 1,500-seat Grand Theater, and an 800-seat Blue Box, connected to a central cube.

Previously on Archinect: OMA's role-defying new theater design debuts in Taipei

The cube houses the stages, backstages, and support spaces of the theaters, which allows the Grand Theater and the Blue Box to come together to form a Super Theater.

Image © Shephotoerd Co. Photography, courtesy of OMA

Image © OMA

The Globe features a unique proscenium that supports experimentation with stage framing. The opaque façades of the theaters juxtapose the animated and illuminated central cube that is clad in corrugated glass.

Image © Shephotoerd Co. Photography, courtesy of OMA

Image © OMA

A landscaped plaza sits beneath the central cube, which is lifted off the ground to accommodate t...

OMA's role-defying new theater design debuts in Taipei

2022-05-16T13:20:00-04:00

New photos have been released of the recently completed Tapei Performing Arts Center by OMA.

Now a part of the capital city’s Shilin Night Market, the new Center houses two 800-seat theaters and a larger 1,500-seat venue in addition to support areas all connected by a centralizing cube-like form that OMA founder Rem Koolhaas thinks will free both patron and performer from a stultifying industry-wide trend.

Image: © OMA by Chris Stowers

“Theater has a very long tradition. We have seen contemporary performance theaters increasingly becoming standardized, with conservative internal operation principles. We want to contribute to the history of the theater,” Koolhaas explained in a statement. “Here in Taipei, we were able to combine three auditoria in a particular way. We are interested to see how this architecture will have an impact in terms of extending what we can do in theater.”

Image © Shephotoerd Co. Photography, courtesy of OMA

Photos reveal the cubic ...

Snøhetta’s Hopkins arts center revamp serves both town and gown to the creative community at Dartmouth

2022-04-08T12:32:00-04:00

Snøhetta has revealed renderings for its new expansion and modernization of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College.

The old facility known commonly as the Hop will be upgraded with a new state-of-the-art broadcast facility, improved accessibility, and connections to the surrounding Hanover Inn and Hood Museum of Art all while preserving the character of its original 1962 design from revered Lincoln Center architect Wallace K. Harrison.

Image courtesy Snøhetta and Methanoia

The renewed Hop will serve as a welcoming gathering spot that connects the town of Hanover with the campus’ central Green. Inspired by the distant White Mountain landscape, the design features an exterior plaza that opens into a new lobby space dubbed the Forum.

Image courtesy Snøhetta and Methanoia

A central staircase connects the ground-level social condenser to the building’s new 150-seat recital hall and performance laboratory on the second floor, with views of Baker Library and the surrounding qu...

Trahan Architects to design a new performing arts center for the Asian American Resource Center in Austin

2022-03-18T19:56:00-04:00

The Asian American Resource Center (AARC) of Austin, Texas is getting an artistic new addition thanks to a design from Trahan Architects.

The New York and New Orleans-based firm was selected to envision a new performing arts space for the center, which will come in the form of two dueling 200- and 400-seat theaters housed within a singular structure on the AARC’s campus in northeast Austin.

Trahan’s design places the arts space next to the existing AARC facility on a 15-acre site at the nexus of Cameron Road and Clear Creek Drive.

Site plan of the planned Performing Arts Center at the Asian American Resource Center. Image courtesy the City of Austin

“[We] feel privileged to be working on such an important cultural project which will enrich the lives of the Asian American community members in Austin and its surrounding areas,” Managing Principal Kevin Thomas said in a statement. “The firm is well-positioned to do this meaningful work by approaching the design to ensure diverse commun...

David Rockwell on his favorite historic NYC Broadway theaters

2020-03-31T00:45:00-04:00

I find it interesting that theaters are so resilient. They can have many lives. [...] For architects, set design can be a lesson in the fact that nothing is permanent. Permanence can be a little restricting, it turns out. Theater isn’t permanent. It exists when there is an audience.

Michael Kimmelman shares an interview with architect David Rockwell, who talked about some of his favorite historic Broadway theaters in NYC while the two went on a walk recently. Rockwell talks about the influence that theater had for him as a child, a few theater design projects his firm worked on, and not to mention some valuable, heartfelt lessons that the world of musical theater can teach during these uncertain times.

Steven Holl Architects' The REACH at The Kennedy Center makes its public debut

2019-09-09T21:00:00-04:00

Five years after breaking ground, The REACH at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts celebrated its grand opening this past Saturday. Designed by Steven Holl Architects with BNIM, The REACH is the Kennedy Center's first expansion project in its 48-year history. The Kennedy Center was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and opened in 1971.

Comprising of three interconnected, geometric pavilions, the expansion adds some 72,000 square-feet of rehearsal, education, and flexible indoor and outdoor spaces to allow the Kennedy Center to provide enriching artistic and cultural opportunities and events to visitors.

Photo: Richard Barnes.

The windows of each pavilion are positioned to provide views through the full depth of the interior. “Through etching the glass, and sandwiching translucent white films between layers, luminous surfaces diffuse light deep into the interior, and glow outward at night,” SHA describes.

Collaborating closely with th...

BIG and Freaks' MÉCA in Bordeaux creates a budding cultural hub

2019-07-05T17:05:00-04:00

The Maison de l'Économie Créative et de la Culture or MÉCA is Bordeaux's newest cultural hub. Costing €60m, the site will house a performing arts center, a creative agency for books, cinema, and audiovisual media as well as housing three prestigious French associations the ALCA, OARA, and FRAC regional art center. When BIG and Paris-based architecture firm FREAKS were chosen for the project in 2012, both studios devised a plan to construct a structure that would connect three art institutions to create the ultimate contemporary hub for multi-disciplinary practice in Bordeaux's Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

MÉCA Cultural Center. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

MÉCA is a waterfront venue fit for visitors to enjoy a celebration of art, film, and performance. The center embodies a flowing structural loop connecting each institute. According to a recent press release by BIG, "The building is conceived as a single loop of cultural institutions and public sp...

O-S Architectes redesigns local Jacques Carat Theater in Cachan, Paris

2018-10-25T15:36:00-04:00

Back in 2011, O-S Architectes won the competition to restructure and expand the Jacques Carat Theater. Located in the Cachan commune in Paris, the original theater was built in 1988 and inaugurated the following year. The theater's restructuring was completed last year and now comprises of two simple volumes, which are organized around the existing central auditorium.

Photo: Cyrille Weiner.

The first volume is a transparent building with multiple openings and the foyer, which then leads to the auditoriums in the second volume. Composed of terracotta elements, the second volume envelopes the project like a “stage curtain”. The theater entrance is like “an outstretched hand that prompts and guides visitors, [and] is marked by a fold that paces the length of the façade,” O-S Architectes says.

Photo: Cyrille Weiner.

The ground floor includes a spacious reception area, two auditor...

Mecanoo's National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts in Taiwan celebrates grand opening

2018-10-19T19:22:00-04:00

Opening night finally arrived for Taiwan's new National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts on October 13. Located on a former military training base in Weiwuying Park, the Mecanoo-designed building houses a 2,236-seat Opera House, a 1,981-seat Concert Hall, a 1,210-seat Playhouse, a 434-seat Recital Hall, and an Outdoor Theater. At the heart of the building is the publicly accessible Banyan Plaza, where events can take place.

Photo: Iwan Baan.

“Inspired by the beauty of the local Banyan trees with their iconic canopies of leaves, the vast, undulating structure is composed of a unique skin and roof under which generous free spaces can flow,” Mecanoo Founding Partner Francine Houben previously described.

Photo: Shawn Liu Studio.

Photo: Sytze Boonstra.

Photo: National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying).

Photo: Ethan Lee.

Opening festivities began with a special ceremony featuring addresses from President of Taiwan Tsai Ing...

KAAN Architecten completes Utopia, a library and academy for performing arts in Belgium

2018-06-26T16:06:00-04:00

Utopia, the Library and Academy for Performing Arts, has recently opened in it's new building designed by KAAN Architecten. Located in Aalst, Belgium, the brick structure incorporates a historic school building from 1880 embedded within.

Taking its cue from Thomas More’s acclaimed book "Utopia" (first printed by a citizen of Aalst), KAAN Architecten's building features an entrance located on an intimate square between the reading café and the auditorium.

Moving through tall, wide openings in the brickwork the structure opens to several thick concrete floors that appearing to float. Hanging at...

The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group takes shape on the High Line

2018-03-09T19:12:00-05:00

Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group, The Shed will open to the public in spring of 2019 with commissioned programs filling its expansive multi-use hall, galleries, and theater situated along NYC's High Line.

The Shed rendering, by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Image: Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

The Shed is a 200,000-square-foot structure that can physically transform to support ambitious ideas across many disciplines. The eight-level base building includes two expansive, column-free galleries, a 500-seat theater that can be subdivided into even more intimate spaces, event and rehearsal space, and a creative lab.

The Shed extendable shell rendering, by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Image: Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

A movable outer shell can double the building’s footprint when deployed over the adjoining plaza to create a temperature-controlled space named The McCourt. The space will be able to house large-scale performances, installations, and events for a...

Three new public projects by Dominique Coulon & Associés show off the firm's commanding use of form and color

2018-03-01T17:16:00-05:00

Dominique Coulon & Associés, based in the east of France, is famous for its masterful use of color. The firm recently completed a sports hall, a performing arts center, and a media library all in France. Check out these stunning public projects below:

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: Eugeni Pons.

The 'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, was recently completed in December 2017. The center consists of a sports hall, a multi-purpose hall, changing rooms, an infirmary, and staff accommodations.

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: Eugeni Pons.

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: David Romero-Uzeda.

The sports center was built in conjunction with a local school created to serve international civil servants working in the city. The two halls were built to accamodate multiple sports and serve as a venue fo...

SPF:a unveils orange tree-inspired design for Anaheim Performing Arts Center in California

2018-02-19T19:44:00-05:00

After 20 years in the heart of Anaheim, California, the City National Grove of Anaheim venue will soon become the Anaheim Performing Arts Center. Today, SPF:a from Culver City unveiled their scheme for the new $500 million project.

For starters, the 500,000-square-foot campus will feature three theaters: a 2,000-seat concert hall, a 1,700-seat opera hall, and a 600-seat black box theatre. It'll also include a museum tower with an observatory set on a 24-foot podium, an outdoor amphitheater, a convention hall, office space, two restaurants, and lecture rooms.

Image courtesy of SPF:a.

The Anaheim Performing Arts Center in Anaheim, California by SPF:a. Image courtesy of SPF:a.

Featuring concentric circles and perforated copper-anodized cladding on the main structures, the campus pays tribute to Anaheim's agricultural history. After Anaheim's vineyards succumbed to disease in the late 19th century, the city invested in citriculture. “Anaheim’s socioeconomic drive...

SPF:a’s Wallis Annenberg Center recognized at California Preservation Design Awards

2014-10-09T18:49:00-04:00

Since the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts by Studio Pali Fekete Architects (SPF:a) broke ground in 2010, the new arts building continues to gain recognition, most recently at the 31st California Preservation Design Awards. Situated in the heart of sunny Beverly Hills, California, the Wallis Annenberg Center complex also includes the restored and renovated historic 1934 Beverly Hills Post Office building.

More photos and project details on Bustler.

Rotch Scholar Christopher Karlson publishes yearlong research on European performing arts-based architecture

2014-07-24T20:41:00-04:00

After Christopher Karlson won the coveted Rotch Travelling Scholarship in 2011, he was required to document his research as images, drawings, and text to be submitted as a compilation report to the Rotch Trustees. Now, that report is finally available to the public as a print-on-demand book.

The 363-page document shows Karlson's yearlong journey to 35 European performance arts landmarks as an exploration of commercialized culture in the 'post-Bilbao' period (1997 to the present).

More details on Karlson's research right below:

"Research Brief: A total of 35 examples of performing-arts-based architecture - spanning almost 240 years of civic metamorphosis - was observed in 28 autonomous cities using Europe’s crowded and competitive urban network as a point of reference and comparative analysis."

"The intention is to investigate the results of such completed projects that all encounter distinctive urban scales, cultural settings, and political footing - with focus on engagement in urban re...

The JFK Center for the Performing Arts announces an expansion project to be designed by Steven Holl Architects

2013-01-29T18:51:00-05:00

Steven Holl Architects was unanimously selected by the Kennedy Center board of trustees to design the project. Mr. Holl remarked, "It is a great honor to design the extension to the Kennedy Center, a 'Living Memorial.' In that spirit ours is part of a vital architecture, providing much needed rehearsal space, and classrooms with natural light and ventilation."

More about this project can be found at The Kennedy Center website.