Performing Arts

This story first appeared in The Dallas Morning News on May 27, 2005.

The Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House arrived last June as a glowing red egg in a crystalline glass box, striking but also static and underdeveloped, like a slick architectural exercise. The revised design, being unveiled today at the Dallas Museum of Art, packs more punch and may be on the verge of carrying a tune.

The changes made by Spencer de Grey of Foster and Partners are subtle but significant: a leaner overall profile (the original resembled a tugboat); a lighter and less expensive sunscreen, or canopy; a more articulated drum festooned with zoomy ramps and staircases that celebrate movement; and a clearer relationship among the building, Flora Street and the surrounding Arts District.

The opera house is the centerpiece of the $275 million Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, which also includes the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, designed by Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture; and the City Performance Hall by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago and Corgan Associates of Dallas.

The opera house will contain a 2,200-seat auditorium, considered optimal acoustically, along with a smaller rehearsal hall and several restaurants, cafes and lounges. In the current version, the auditorium forms a tight oval wrapping the stage, inspired, say the architects, by the National Theater in Munich, Germany, and the Bouffe du Nord in Paris, both built in the 19th century. It may be decorated in subdued reds and golds, though final decisions about colors, interior finishes and related items are still months away.

"The ambition is to create a building that will not only be fully integrated with the cultural life of Dallas," says Mr. de Grey, "but become a destination in its own right. We don't want it to be a precious enclave."

A key to achieving that goal is the surrounding grand plaza, the least resolved piece of the design. It will be shaded by a spreading 60-foot-high aluminum sunscreen measuring 370 by 440 feet. To cut costs, the architects reduced the thickness of the canopy roof by 3 feet; but it is still enormous, almost a building in its own right. The canopy will shield the building's glass facade from the scorching Texas sun, while creating a setting for festivals, parties and other outdoor events.

Tucked into the northwest corner is the redesigned Annette Strauss Artist Square, while on the southeast the building will open onto a cafe and the neighboring Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, slated for a $30 million renovation by Allied Works of Portland, Ore. The architects hope this area will become a crossroads for students, performers and the public, groups that rarely converge in the Arts District.

The heart of the plaza will be sprinkled with tables, chairs and kiosks; it will also be closed to traffic except immediately before performances, when cars will be allowed to pull up to the main entrance before descending to the underground parking garage.

"Nobody will enter the opera house from below," says Mr. de Grey, alluding to the catacomb arrangement at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. "We want everyone to come in through the front door."

Landscape architect Michel Desvigne has proposed a shallow pool and fountains for the Flora Street edge of the plaza, along with a depressed garden. The water will help create a cooling microclimate, while the garden may conceal one or more parking ramps. The greenery could even penetrate several levels of the garage, says Mr. de Grey, though that decision is still up in the air.

Construction of the parking garage will start in October. Groundbreaking for the Winspear and the Wyly Theatre is scheduled for 2006, with the entire performing arts center, including the City Performance Hall, opening in 2009.