![]() What the descent will be like in slippery rain or (as happens here occasionally) ice remains to be known. Audiences will have to accommodate themselves to several interesting architectural decisions: The entrance to the building lies at the end of a downwardly raked plaza, tastefully landscaped with native trees and grasses in planters. Koolhaas said he wanted the theater not only to be distinctive and useful but also to relate discreetly to other downtown Dallas buildings, which he described as "boring boxes." All 575 seats (rather stiff, narrow and uncomfortable, alas) can be realigned. The entire chamber can turn into an enormous black box. ![]() Plays can be performed in a standard proscenium arrangement, or with a thrust stage. The floor and stage can be raised or lowered. Everything is stacked vertically, capable of multiple rearrangements. Koolhaas and Prince-Ramus took a conventional, horizontally arranged theater space and turned it up 90 degrees. The aluminum exterior looks like so many organ pipes. The Wyly is raw, edgy and industrial, all concrete, metal and glass. The two new buildings are yin and yang, night and day. Still, Dallas likes to claim bragging rights for the Pritzker Prize-winners themselves, even though both buildings represent collaborative efforts.Įarlier this month in Dallas, two new venues opened in the city's Arts District as part of the new AT&T Performing Arts Center, a $354 million, 10-acre project. Not only Foster and Koolhaas, but also their associates-Spencer de Grey in Foster's office, and Joshua Prince-Ramus (who later split from Koolhaas to open his own office)-share responsibility for the two projects. Pei), the Nasher Sculpture Center (2003, Renzo Piano), and the two new kids on the block: the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House (Norman Foster) and the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater (Rem Koolhaas). These are the Meyerson Symphony Center (1989, I.M. It constitutes the latest addition to what Dallas refers to as its Arts District (68 acres in toto), which began with the Edward Larrabee Barnes Dallas Museum of Art (1984) and includes buildings by four winners of the Pritzker Prize for architecture, none of which remotely resembles the others. None is more exciting than what opened here earlier this month, the new AT&T Performing Arts Center, a $354 million, 10-acre assemblage aligned on one central axis beside a bustling freeway at the edge of downtown. Ewing clan on television 30 years ago has undergone multiple transformations. In the face of a national recession it is amazing that any building can go up.Įxcept in Dallas, that is, where the skyline made famous by the J.R. ![]() ![]() And everything takes longer and costs more to construct. Variety, not uniformity, speaks to our national commitment to diversity and spice of all sorts. A massive arts complex would strike us as unthinkable as well as authoritarian. ![]()
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