Audio By Carbonatix
As the new AT&T Performing Arts Center’s grand opening week continues, architects behind the Wyly Theatre, Winspear Opera House and Sammons Park were on hand Thursday morning to answer reporters’ questions about how the designs all came together, and what it all means.
Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus were both on hand in their Wyly Theatre (kept a safe distance apart on separate floors), while Norman Foster and Spencer de Grey held court in the Winspear.
From the Wyly, where balconies are hung from the rafters on a stadium
scoreboard-like system, to the Winspear, where the orchestra pit rises
on an elevator floor to accommodate extra seating, the venues’
flexibility came up again and again.
Lanscape artist Michel Desvigne was on hand to explain how his design for Sammons Park (between the Wyly and the Winspear), long on grids and cement, is meant to mesh with the city around it, while Foster was happy to point out the design features — down to the angle of the blades in the canopy around the Winspear — that make the Winspear fit perfectly in Dallas. “I couldn’t imagine it anywhere else,” Foster said.
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If you want to hear more from the architects, Foster’s holding a free architecture forum tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in the Winspear, and Prince-Ramus will be chatting in the Wyly at 2 p.m.
Or you can take a tour with them all here in our slide show.
