Alice Tully Hall Renovation

By Alex Padalka

The Alice Tully Hall project was a key component of an overall redesign of the entire Lincoln Center campus, which includes extensive work on the 65th Street promenade that cuts the center in two and a complete redesign of the Columbus Avenue entrance. (Rendering by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in Co.)

Nothing in the city says "performing arts" with quite the same gusto as the 16-acre urban mall that is Lincoln Center, combining 12 different organizations including the Julliard School, the Lincoln Center Theater and the School of American Ballet. After four decades of use, however, the center's many concert halls and public spaces needed extensive renovation. The 80,000-sq-ft new Alice Tully Hall, completed in February, was the first in a series of renovation projects to celebrate the center's 50th anniversary but it's a key component of an overall redesign of the entire campus, which includes extensive work on the 65th Street promenade that cuts the center in two and a complete redesign of the Columbus Avenue entrance.

"It's an organic project," says Elizabeth Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the New York architects brought on to, in collaboration with New York's FXFOWLE, who have recently become synonymous with innovative large redevelopments in the city, winning commissions for the design of the city's High Line and Governor's Island. "Since there's so many upgrades, why not think of it as one whole project?"

The completion of the new, 80,000-sq-ft Alice Tully Hall is the first in an aggressive series of renovations at Lincoln Center as part of its 50th anniversary. (Rendering by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in Co.)

Originally designed by Pietro Belluschi and constructed in 1969, Lincoln Center was to be an iconic project to celebrate the city's glamorous musical heritage in a bold and powerful expression that would distinguish it from the architecture of the Upper West Side--which resulted in a "mega-block" that united all of the center's facilities, with its own gas station inside one of the parking garages, and plans, eventually scrapped, for traffic to enter directly onto the plaza south of 65th Street. The language of the renovation project, explains Diller, was to be sensitive to what was there but to send a new message: a more open, transparent and inviting place, better integrated into the fabric of its surroundings. At Alice Tully Hall, this first of all meant replacing a concrete and uninviting entrance at Broadway and 65th Street with a new three-story all-glass curtain wall.

"We stripped to reveal what was already here," Diller says.

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The entrance lobby has been expanded from 707 to 6,161 sq ft by projecting the space eastward, framed from above by the canopy of a new cantilevered extension of the Julliard School. A new cafe will be open to the public from 8 am to 11 pm, as the new foyer is meant to be a gathering space for the entire area rather than merely for concert goers. Outside, a new seating area rises in steps toward street level, culminating at the acute intersection of Broadway and 65th Street with a new grandstand, which shelters a visitor information kiosk.

Overlooking the outer lobby is a new second-story patron salon, sheathed in structural glass fin wall, with seating for up to 140 people and its own bar as well as a wide terrace running along 65th Street with views of the rest of Lincoln Center.

The lobby's one-way cable wall keep the sounds of the city slightly muffled but still very much audible. To immerse concert goers in the experience, the inner lobby, separated by an oversize sliding glass door, is meant as a more intimate space, although by no means small: including the 4,200-sq-ft donor salon, the new inner lobby has been expanded from 5,157 to 9,468 sq ft.

(Rendering by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in Co.)

The sounds of the street evaporate into silence once inside the actual Starr Theater, retrofited with a new acoustic wall. The hall now includes two automated stage extensions, with the front part dropping down to provide for extra seating (from 923 to 1,087 seats) or continuing lower for an orchestra. The space now has new air-handling, lighting and sound systems, an automated film screen, which before took six workers six hours to set up, as well as expanded dressing rooms, chorus rooms and a new rehearsal space back stage.

The most striking feature of the theater has to do with the reshaping of of interior surfaces it is more open and free of obstructions, with a distinct nod to the original '60s design in the form of a fin on each side running underneath the balcony seating, reminiscent of a fin of a hot rod of the era. The Moabi veneer wood and resin panels make the space feel warm--but they are not quite the wood paneling one would expect. Behind it are LED lights, illuminating the wall from within and transforming the veneer into a "skin."

(Rendering by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in Co.)

"The stimulus for this were bio-luminescent organisms," explains Diller, with a look of childish wonder on her face. The lights were still being tested and the control room could not turn on more than a small section of the left wall. At first it seemed like there was a reflection of a red light on the wood paneling--until it became evident that there was nothing close in site to reflect. "It feels very much like a human blush. The effect is almost subliminal," Diller says, watching the light. "It was not very rational," she finally admits. "We just thought, ‘What can happen that's magical?’"

Team List:

Owner: Lincoln Center
Construction Manager: Turner Construction Co., New York
Architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with FXFOWLE Architects, New York
Structural/Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing Engineers: Ove Arup & Partners, London
Theatrical Design: Fisher Dachs Associates, New York
Acoustic Design: JaffeHolden Acoustics, Norwalk, CT
Curtain Wall: RA Heintges Architects Consultants, New York
Lighting Design: L'Observatoire International, Inc., New York