Lincoln Center's Construction Stage
64th Street on the right & Lincoln Center view to the west showing from left to right: New York State Theater,
(Philip Johnson, 1964), Metropolitan Opera House (Wallace K. Harrison, 1966), and Philharmonic Hall
(Max Abramovitz, 1962) Metropolitan Opera Archives via New York 1960, by Robert A.M. Stern, Thomas Mellins
and David Fishman /Artwork: designslinger]
Curbed ran a great photo gallery of pics updating the ongoing construction at New York's
Lincoln Center. The performing arts complex is going through an upgrade and a reworking of some of it's mid-60s era design, which was carved out of the Lincoln Square neighborhood on Manhattan's upper West Side. In 1955 the Mayor's Slum Clearance Committee was given the okay to start the process of creating a large urban renewal project at 64th Street and Columbus Avenue and the centerpiece of the plan was the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Architect Wallace Harrison was chosen as the lead designer with Philip Johnson and Max Abramovitz, who designed the Philharmonic Hall which opened in 1962. They each designed one of the buildings surrounding the central court and eventually mid-century modernists, Eero Saarinen and Gordon Bundshaft, designed buildings for the center. The redo currently underway includes a redesign and sprucing-up of public spaces as well as providing a new exterior for Alice Tully Hall.
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles Music Center, dailymatador via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
1955 proved to be an important year in the history of Los Angeles' Music Center as well.
In March of that year, the doyenne of LA society Dorothy Chandler set out on a mission to create a performing arts center located in the downtown area known as Bunker Hill. The former residential community sat above the city's commercial district and at one time housed the city's cultural and business elite. Abandoned by the upper class, the large Victorian era mansions became rooming houses, and the neighborhood became a community of transients and the poor. By the time Mrs. Chandler decided to provide her hometown with an arts center, the old, worn-out wood framed buildings that covered the Hill had been demolished, or were in the process of being moved from their hilltop location. Bunker Hill had been deemed one of those urban blight communities that would better serve the city by undergoing massive renewal. The Music Center would be the crown jewel of the plan, and Mrs. Chandler became the driving force and biggest supporter of the venture. Architect Welton Becket's complex opened to the public in 1964 and bears a remarkable similarity to Lincoln Center. The latest addition to the Music Center is Disney Hall, the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, designed by Frank Gehry.
San Francisco Performing Arts Center, 1932, sfpl.org /Artwork: designslinger]
When the city of San Francisco decided they needed a performing arts center they turned
to architect Arthur Brown, Jr. He was the designer of the 1915 City Hall building that sat directly across the street from the site of the new San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. In 1918, Brown designed two buildings in the Beaux-arts style he used on the City Hall project. The Opera House and the Veterans Building were a nice accompaniment to the large-domed city building and the civic center area. The project took quite a while to get off the ground and the buildings were finally completed in 1932. When the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall opened in 1980, the architects gave a nod to Brown and attempted to design a modern structure within the context of the surrounding architecture.
All three of these art centers were built for one purpose - to provide performance venues
and support space for music, dance and theater. All three have been very successful at fulfilling their mission as homes for the arts, but many people still debate whether or not the New York and Los Angeles Centers were successful architecturally. I suspect that's one reason Lincoln Center is having it's face lifted.
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