Performing Arts

This story first appeared in The Dallas Morning News on June 9, 2004.

Accompanied by popping corks, dessert sushi and chocolate-covered kumquat lollipops, the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts unveiled its two eye-popping centerpieces Tuesday night: an opera house resembling a gigantic red egg and a theater that looks like an upside-down skyscraper.

At a gala party at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Norman Foster, founder of one of the world's most acclaimed architecture firms, presented plans for the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, a massive red shape inside a delicate glass box. It will seat 2,200 people and cost about $140 million, roughly half the $275 million budget for the entire performing arts center. The main auditorium will form a horseshoe and be surrounded by lobbies and cafes that open to a plaza.

"This is a pivotal moment for the [Arts] District,'' he said, "when you have the visual arts on one side and the performing arts on the other. There is an opportunity for this building to be more than an opera house, to reach out with its cafes and promenades and protective canopies to create social events as well as cultural ones."

Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas struck a similar populist note with the Charles and Dee Wyly Theatre, an 11-story tower across Flora Street from the opera house. A flexible glass-walled theater will occupy the lower levels, with offices, studios and other spaces stacked above.

"Height allows a mall building to hold its own among larger neighbors," project architect Joshua Ramus said. "If it were quiet and modest, it wouldn't be the populist building we want."

A redesigned Annette Strauss Artist Square, the district's outdoor venue, completes the basic design. The main performance area will now sit behind the Meyerson, facing west, with a broad landscaped plaza linking it to the adjacent opera house.

"We had high expectations when we hired these two architects, and I think they have been fulfilled," said Bill Lively, president of the performing arts center foundation. "The buildings are very different, but each is beautiful in its own way."

Mr. Lively expects construction on both to begin in 2006, once the underground parking garage is finished. The center, including the publicly financed City Performance Hall, is scheduled to open in fall 2009.