Archinect - News

William Rawn Associates selected for Sarasota Music Center design

2024-10-30T10:43:00-04:00

William Rawn Associates has announced work on the initial concept plan for the future Sarasota Orchestra Music Center in Sarasota, Florida ahead of the project's public debut next spring. This project expands on the firm’s award-winning portfolio of performing arts spaces that dates to its 1983 founding and includes two venues for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood campus.

The selection committee was thus impressed with the firm’s "listening first" philosophy and the ability of the team presentation led by principal Cliff Gayley to address seven key criteria. Work on the project’s development phase has already begun and will continue with HKS joining on as its executive architect. The firm says its new Music Center will be the first space purpose-built for acoustic music in the Sarasota region. The historic nearby Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall was recently closed indefinitely after sustaining a reported $7 million worth of damage during Hurricane Milton.

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Construction photos show Sou Fujimoto's House of Hungarian Music nearing completion

2021-01-20T17:45:00-05:00

Image courtesy of Liget BudapestPraised by both the architecture and music profession, Sou Fujimoto's House of Hungarian Music aimed to blend the natural and built environment. According to Fujimoto, he wanted to create a sense of harmony between "the nature of sound and the sounds of nature." The project will be a structural icon for Budapest as part of the Liget Budapest Project, the largest and "most ambitious" cultural development program in Europe.

House of Hungarian Music. Image © Mohai Balazs/Courtesy of Liget Budapest

From its glass-walled facade to its perforated canopy, what makes the sing is its undulating roof that is said to represent the "visual representation of the vibration of sound: the wave." Its organic design emphasizes renewable energy and environmentally aware construction methods (as noted by BREEAM). Fujimoto and his team also drew design inspiration from the Secessionist building of the Liszt Academy and Hungary's music and music education traditions.

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RUR Architecture completes the Taipei Music Center's Performance Hall

2020-09-03T12:52:00-04:00

RUR Architecture's (formerly Reiser + Umemoto) 756,000-square-foot Performance Hall at the Taipei Music Center (TMC) has officially opened with its first concert planned to take place this month. Located in the Nangung District, the project sits on a 9-hectare site in Taipei and is dedicated to the performance, production, and celebration of pop music in Asia.

"Ten years ago, the outskirts of Taipei were characterized by industrial areas situated right up against verdant, forested hills," said Jesse Reiser, Principal at RUR in a statement. "There was, and still is, no gradual transition of city to suburbs – in fact no suburbs at all. The effect of that contrast is a striking juxtaposition between city and nature. Once the old industry was removed and the Taipei Music Center was constructed, we found that nature and new architecture amplified each other’s beauty. Taipei Music Center functions as a discrete urban organism within the natural landscape, an urban peninsula connected to t...

Los Angeles's Music Center Plaza makes its public debut

2019-09-06T19:45:00-04:00

RCH Studios recently completed a $41 million renovation of the public plaza that unifies the Music Center arts complex in Downtown Los Angeles.

Flanked on either side by the Welton Becket-designed Mark Taper Forum and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the plaza has been revamped with an eye toward universal design and passive recreation.

Aerial view of the revamped plaza. Image courtesy of Tim Street Porter.

For the project, RCH Studios has added a total of five new structures to the 53-year-old plaza, including a welcome center, a full-service restaurant, a wine bar, a coffee shop, and a series of accessible public restrooms.

The space, designed as a multi-functional “plaza for all,” has been reconsidered by the architects as the Music Center's "fifth venue," joining the Ahmanson Theatre, located behind the Taper Forum building, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which sits across the street.

At the center of the space sits a joyful splash pad, while surrounding areas, formerly composed ...

Frank Gehry's Merriweather Post Pavilion roof collapses during renovation

2018-01-25T13:21:00-05:00

One of architect Frank Gehry’s earliest public buildings collapsed this month as it was nearing the end of a five-year, $55 million renovation, forcing the owners to revise their plans. The roof of the Merriweather Post Pavilion, a 19,000-seat open-air concert venue in Columbia, Maryland, crashed down in the middle of the night on Saturday, January 13, burying the seating below. No one was injured.

The concert pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry, Walsh, and O'Malley in 1967 and is being renovated to maintain presence among other performing arts centers. The design team opted to keep the original roof seeing it as the defining element of Gehry's design and were in the process of raising it 20 feet on hydraulic lifts improving sightlines when it collapsed.

Merriweather Post Pavilion, image via Youtube

So far a cause for the collapse has not been disclosed. This incident marks the concert pavilion as one of the first major Frank Gehry buildings to be considerably lost or modified despite efforts to retain its architectural integrity.

Renovated Merriweather Post Pavilion rendering by JP2 Architects. Image: JP2 Architects.

Gehry Partners is not a part of the renovation design team headed up by JP2 Architects, but was briefed on the project. A new roof will be built in time for this summer's concert season with the first show scheduled for July.

Starry shortlist of architects for London’s new Center for Music

2017-07-11T20:38:00-04:00

The viability of building a major new concert hall in London has been widely debated, and the future of the Center was thrown into doubt last November, when the British government withdrew its commitment to contribute 5 million pounds (about $6.4 million) to pay for a business plan. The City of London Corporation stepped in with 2.5 million pounds (about $3.2 million) to allow project to go ahead.

The shortlist for the future home for the London Symphony Orchestra and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama was announced on Monday and consists of AL_A, Foster + Partners, Renzo Piano, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Gehry Partners, Snohetta , all of which have extensive experience working on cultural buildings.

The center which will include a concert hall with up to 2,000 seats, as well as education and training spaces, will be located in what is currently the Museum of London, designed by Hidalgo Moya and Philip Powell in the 1970s. The building is estimated to cost 200 million to 250 million pounds ($257 million to $322 million) to construct and is to be covered by private and philanthropic donations.

"The shortlisted architects have been asked to provide detailed designs as well as estimated costs, and the winner will be announced this fall."