# DALLAS | Arts District Redevelopment News



## romanamerican (Apr 28, 2007)

Dallasbrink said:


> Toping off Wyly
> http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/hp/index.html?nvid=243376&shu=1


good to see the project following smoothly. Can't wait to see it completed, it will be gorgeous!


----------



## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Good project principally. I would have prefered it to look more urban and some clearer generel structure, maybe with all those cultural building forming together a pedestrianized center of this new art district.

Of course thats a question of personal taste though. 


PS:
Claiming Dallas to become the very worldwide center of arts is obviously way over the top. Its pretty much impossible that it could even dreaming of beating heavyweigths like New York or Paris. I believe that Vienna can dare to risk a comparison as well. But thats not the point anyway, is it? One does not need to be very center of the world to be of significance.


----------



## Fab 5 (Jan 10, 2008)

Slartibartfas said:


> PS:
> Claiming Dallas to become the very worldwide center of arts is obviously way over the top. Its pretty much impossible that it could even dreaming of beating heavyweigths like New York or Paris. I believe that Vienna can dare to risk a comparison as well. But thats not the point anyway, is it? One does not need to be very center of the world to be of significance.


Having lived in New Braunfels, TX, now currently residing in Copenhagen and travelling all over the world, I can only say, that the Dallas projects look awesome, however, such plans and ambitions are realized or in the pipe-line all over the world these days. Just take a look at the Copenhagen thread below for instance


----------



## theworldshallcry (Mar 8, 2007)

The Dallas arts scene needs to catch up with Houston first. They're on the right track though.


----------



## Dallasbrink (Nov 2, 2007)

theworldshallcry said:


> The Dallas arts scene needs to catch up with Houston first. They're on the right track though.


HAHAHA
right, Houston has to borrow its art scene, ive been there an seen it, Dallas is caught up if not past it already.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

http://www.dallasperformingarts.org/index.aspx


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

Final Renderings, models and cut aways of the City Performance Hall.


----------



## Fab 5 (Jan 10, 2008)

^^A bit Utzon-like.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

Photo Updates from maconahey

Winspear Opera House









Wyly Theatre


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

JPI Realtors is building new apartments on the site next to One Arts Tower, ground work just kicked off.

Render









Photo by Maconahey
6/29/08


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

*Builders flip the script to construct Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas*
11:30 PM CDT on Tuesday, July 29, 2008

By JENNI BEAUCHAMP / The Dallas Morning News 
[email protected]
Designers of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre boast that when it opens next year, it will be one of the most innovative theaters in the world.

But getting there has required some innovative construction methods.

The 10-story building (plus three underground levels) is being built from the top down. That's because most of the Wyly's floors sit – indeed, seem to float – atop what will be its airy, glass-sheathed auditorium.

Building the facility in the conventional way – from the ground up – just wasn't possible, said Jeff Wagner, senior project manager for McCarthy Building Companies, the project's general contractor.

"If we built this in another sequence, the building would want to pull itself apart," he said.

"This is a high-rise theater. I don't think there is any other in the world."

The floor of the theater includes a series of movable platforms that can be raised and lowered during events.

These platforms, Mr. Wagner said, "cannot support the weight of construction equipment, lifts or scaffolding" needed to build the higher floors. So that "high work" had to be finished before completion of the theater space.

The glass-enclosed theater is held up on three sides by thin, angled concrete beams. The fourth side is the enclosure's one solid wall.

Until those beams could be poured and set, six huge steel supports had to be erected to hold up the construction above.

Once the concrete beams were in place, the steel supports were no longer needed. They came down this month.

It took the contractors several drafts to come up with a plan for carrying out the dramatic vision of the building's architects, Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus.

"This is far and away my most complicated project," Mr. Wagner said. "The biggest hurdle was trying to engineer how to construct the structure. We didn't anticipate the duration or complexity that would require. We modified our plan ... 50 times."

The theater chamber, with a seating capacity of 600, will be blacked out for performances, using electric shades on tracks built into the glass. The shades are patterned; on the inside, the audience will see a forest motif. On the outside will be a pattern of folded silver curtains.

"They wanted a very intimate stage. They want you to feel really, really special when you are in here. And you will," Mr. Wagner said.

Also under construction in the Dallas Arts District is the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House.

With the completion of the Winspear and the Wyly, Dallas will be the world's only city with four buildings in a contiguous block all designed by winners of the Pritzker Prize, one of architecture's most prestigious awards:

•Mr. Koolhaas (the Wyly)

•Norman Foster (the Winspear)

•I.M. Pei (the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center)

•Renzo Piano (the Nasher Sculpture Center)

A fifth Pritzker winner, Thom Mayne, is designing the Perot Museum of Nature & Science in nearby Victory Park.


----------



## theworldshallcry (Mar 8, 2007)

I didn't mean my last post to be insulting. Houston's Theatre District is quite impressive, and Dallas will likely surpass it once all these projects are completed. I'll stay respectful though, regarding Chicago's arts scene.


----------



## ChapinUrbano (Oct 5, 2005)

This development is really changing the downtown area of Dallas, is looking awesome.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

from SDORN

Wyly









Winspear


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

Some Photos I took this weekend

3 buildings designed by Pritzker Winning Architects in one shot.....awesome


















sad









Performing Arts School









What the Art district is









What it will be









More to come


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

as prommised....MORE

Winspear




































Wyly


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

Billingsley Co. plans second high-rise in Dallas' downtown Arts District.
10:45 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 27, 2008
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-twoarts_28bus.State.Edition1.3f3cd7f.html

Developer Billingsley Co. is finalizing plans for its second high-rise in Dallas' downtown Arts District. Two Arts Plaza will include more office and retail space, condos plus loft-style residences on the lower floors and an urban park. "The next one will be a little more feminine than the first building but still contemporary and true to the neighborhood," said developer Lucy Billingsley.

Earlier this year, she finished the $150 million, 24-story One Arts Plaza at Routh and Flora streets. The second building will be just north of One Arts Plaza at Routh and Woodall Rodgers Freeway. The most eye-catching addition to the project will be a park and retail complex with swooping lawns and landscaping.

At the base of the new high-rise, Billingsley Co. plans to construct a five-story building with loft residences overlooking the park. Two Arts Plaza was designed by architect Morrison Seifert Murphy, which also did the first tower. A marketing center is expected to open in October to seek residents and office tenants for the new tower.

"The whole aim is to get a lead office tenant and let it roll," Ms. Billingsley said. "We'll take the risk and build the condos. "We are not dreaming with this – we are just trying to get a deal done." Construction is to begin next year. The initial building kicked off the Arts District building boom and is now almost fully leased to office tenants including 7-Eleven Inc. and law firm Thompson Knight. And all the lower-level retail space has been rented. More than two-thirds of the condos at the top of the tower have been sold.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

Some images from today's DMN:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/pt/slideshows/2008/08/business/


----------



## romanamerican (Apr 28, 2007)

^^^^ great:cheers:


----------



## rockin'.baltimorean (Jul 5, 2008)

yep, truly a masterpiece!!!kay:


----------



## city_thing (May 25, 2006)

Is the carpark really part of the design?... that's very, Texas.










I really like this awesome grass wave thing though. This whole development is 'the shit'.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

city_thing said:


> Is the carpark really part of the design?... that's very, Texas.


O god...let me give you the "history" of the "Car Park"

from long ago......

What's wrong with this picture?


October 31, 2003

By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News

The Meyerson Symphony Center anchors the Arts District and dominates the northeast corner of the downtown skyline.

But right across the street from the Meyerson is another landmark that's often overlooked.

The jumble of rust-streaked concrete columns between Flora Street and Ross Avenue is all that's left of a developer's dream.

In the 1980s, a Chicago builder started work on twin 50-story skyscrapers. But a real estate crash killed the deal, and nothing was built but the foundation.










Allison V. Smith / DMN

The foundation of Lone Star Plaza is artistic in its own right, but it's all that was ever built of planned 50-story towers.
The site is emblematic of the Arts District's history with the private sector.

Almost $500 million has been spent on infrastructure and cultural facilities, but private developers have for the most part been out of the game.

"We are still waiting for the economics of development in the Arts District to catch up with the cultural amenities that are on the ground," said developer John Sughrue, who owns several properties in the area. "Everyone thought it would happen a lot sooner."

Now, with the opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center and the building boom in nearby Uptown, developers are taking another look at the Arts District.

"The Nasher has refocused attention on the area," Mr. Sughrue said. "And I think people expect to see things happening down there."

High hopes are nothing new in the Arts District. In the 1980s, you couldn't have found a hotter chunk of real estate on the planet.

Before the Dallas Museum of Art – the first cultural facility there – opened its doors in 1984, developers were buying up land between Ross Avenue and Woodall Rodgers and making big plans. Land quickly hit almost $300 per square foot.

Properties traded and flipped, and architects designed futuristic towers for every corner.

Along with the art museum and the symphony hall, proposals for the district included millions of square feet of office space, hundreds of rental units, and lavish shops, studios and galleries for artists.

Developers including Lincoln Property Co., Bright Banc and Metropolitan Structures of Chicago announced plans for almost a dozen office towers for the district.

The construction plans reached the point that art critics fretted that all the skyscrapers would keep the DMA's sculpture garden in perpetual shadow.

Such worries were misplaced.

In the end, only one office tower – the 50-story Trammell Crow Center at Ross and Harwood Street – was built. And much of the Arts District remains pretty much as it looked in the early 1980s.










This 50-story tower never made it off the drawing board.

Prime development tracts are still occupied by crumbling parking lots, scruffy vacant land and decrepit buildings.

Phil Montgomery, whose P.O'B. Montgomery & Co. was instrumental in early coordination of the Arts District, said the area never gained the critical mass of private sector construction needed to spur continued building.

"But I think having the Arts District helped stabilize downtown a lot more than if we had done none of that," Mr. Montgomery said.

And he credits the Arts District with kicking off the housing boom in the nearby State Thomas district of Uptown. "The creation of the district meant a lot to Uptown and all those new housing units."

Dallas architect Graham Greene still hasn't given up the notion of building luxury housing in the Arts District. He and partners own the block across the street from the Nasher Sculpture Center at Flora and Olive streets.

In 1998, Mr. Greene announced plans for condominiums and retail space on the site.

"We have delayed development of our site because of Sept. 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said. "But we haven't given up our plans."

Mr. Greene wants to eventually develop an eight-story building on the block with about 80 residences.

"We believe that residential development is the best thing that can happen for downtown Dallas and the Arts District," he said. "If there was less uncertainty about the economy, we would move forward."

A landmark, of sorts

Another prime Arts District development tract – the Stonehenge-like Lone Star Plaza site across from the Meyerson – is in the hands of Dallas real estate investor and developer Craig Hall.

While Mr. Hall has shown that he's not afraid of taking risks with other investments, so far he hasn't pulled the switch to start work on the Lone Star Plaza site.

He's owned the building site, which sits on top of an underground parking garage, since 1995.

"I still think I'm two or three years away from building something there," said Mr. Hall, who has hired architect HKS Inc. to design a 12- or 13-story office building with residential space on top.

"Unfortunately, the market down there is just not ready for office and residential construction," he said. "I think the Nasher Sculpture Center is fantastic and a tribute to Ray Nasher that he did it.

"But I don't think it will have an immediate impact on development in the area," Mr. Hall said. "In any other city, it would be a home run."

The largest undeveloped tract in the Arts District is held by another experienced developer, Lucy Crow Billingsley.

She has almost 10 acres at the east end of the district at the end of Flora Street.

Ms. Billingsley said her family began assembling the land in the late 1970s with an eye toward building high-rise office, hotel or residential space.

"I imagined back then that downtown Dallas would have tremendous growth, and the heart of the city would have expanded to the Arts District," she said. "But it never happened."

Ms. Billingsley said she still hopes to build high-rise residential on the land someday. And she's held discussions with the Dallas Museum of Natural History about perhaps locating there as well.

"But I'm real flexible," she said. "If something doesn't transpire, we will wait and see what the development and resurgence of downtown calls for."

Work in progress

Mr. Sughrue isn't waiting.

His Brook Partners is converting the former Southwestern Life Insurance Co. building at Ross and St. Paul across from the DMA into first-class office space and a wholesale apparel mart.

In the 1980s, the block was slated to be demolished to make way for a row of skyscrapers. Twenty years later, the old buildings are getting a new look.

And Mr. Sughrue is selling a small block at the north end of his property to a cultural group.

"There is going to be a priority placed on proximity to these incredible cultural institutions," he said. "We believe we are getting closer to the day we can support high-rise residences or an additional office tower.

"We're close, but that's not today," he said.

Mr. Sughrue blames runaway land speculation and the real estate market crash in the 1980s with keeping the Arts District off most builders' maps.

"Land values in the Arts District today are more than 50 percent less than what they were 15 years ago, but they are still too high for most retail and residential development," he said. "If current trends continue, we are going to see quality private development again in the Arts District."

These are the towers that are supposed to be on the "Stonehenge" parking garage that is left that looks NOTHING like the render up top.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

*Dallas Center for the Performing Arts lands $15 million windfall, improves design
*08:02 AM CDT on Monday, September 22, 2008

By SCOTT CANTRELL / The Dallas Morning News 
[email protected]

The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts has landed its third-largest contribution and a new, improved design for outdoor spaces around the Winspear Opera House and Wyly Theatre, now under construction.

Thanks to a $15 million gift from Sammons Enterprises Inc., the 10-acre park in the downtown Arts District will be named the Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park.

In response to criticism of initial designs for the park, French landscape architect Michel Desvigne and the Chicago firm JJR have produced a simpler, calmer plan that is more coherent and will compete less with the adjacent buildings, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects.

Scheduled to open in fall 2009, the center's Winspear was designed by Foster + Partners, the Wyly by REX/OMA (Joshua Prince-Ramus and Rem Koolhaas). The adjacent 19-year-old Meyerson Symphony Center was designed by I.M. Pei.

The two largest gifts to the performing arts center came earlier in the fundraising campaign: $42 million from Margot and the late Bill Winspear for the opera house and $20 million from Dee and Charles Wyly and Cheryl and Sam Wyly for the theater. To date, the campaign has raised more than $325 million toward a goal of $338 million.

"To get a gift of this significance at this point in the campaign is really remarkable," Mr. Lively said. "It gives us the incentive and momentum to push to the end."

Founded by Mr. Sammons in 1962, Sammons Enterprises evolved out of a stock-life insurance company. At one point, Sammons Enterprises included everything from financial-services companies to hotel properties to bottled water, and it was one of the first investors in cable television.

Today, Sammons Enterprises is a diversified holding company that employs more than 4,300 in the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom. One of the largest privately held companies in Dallas, the firm has operations including insurance and construction-equipment companies and the Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in Asheville, N.C.

Since Mr. Sammons' death in 1988, his wife, Elaine, has been chairwoman of the company and a philanthropist and arts patron. A contribution from the couple helped establish Dallas' Sammons Center for the Arts, which provides permanent office and rehearsal spaces for 12 performing arts organizations and is used by more than 40 groups for performances, rehearsals and meetings.

"Sammons Park will be a refreshing venue for all the people of Dallas – those attending the symphony, opera or theater, as well as families and those who work and live downtown," said Sammons Enterprises CEO Robert Korba. "It will host cultural events, outdoor art exhibits and outdoor performances."

*A 'calmed' design*
The previous design, unveiled in September 2006, drew a dismissive review from longtime Dallas Morning News architecture critic David Dillon, who described what was then called Performance Park as "a potpourri of discrete elements in search of a larger idea."

"Performance Park turns [out] to be more miniature golf course than grand civic space, with water hazards, tiny fairways, everything except the flags for pin placement. ...

"The park is overwrought and unresolved, with no clear center, no hierarchy or crisp spatial definition."

Stung, the performing arts center and its landscape designers regrouped and assembled a peer-review panel including Frederick Steiner, dean of the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, and Dr. Dillon, who by then had left the staff of The News.

"We as a group, with our clients, revisited the design," said Debra Mitchell, senior vice president of JJR, the site architect of record. "We undertook a number of things that I would say calmed the design.

"With two such prestigious buildings, it needed to be very calming and simple and not detract from their magnificence."

Gone are the earlier design's fussy groupings, clearly conceived as naming opportunities, in favor of more open spaces with fewer trees and water features.

The plan creates a clear axis between the Wyly and Winspear and punctuates lawns among paved walkways with crisp patches of native grasses and perennial flowers. The only water feature is a rectangular fountain, to the right of the opera house entrance.

*Park plans*
The plan envisions the aluminum-fin canopy extending well beyond the opera house, shading movable tables and chairs. It also calls for free wireless access throughout the park.

In the middle of the long, wide slope into the underground entrance to the Wyly will be a zigzag, handicapped-accessible ramp, its switchbacks interspersed with more native plantings.

The park is expected to be completed by October 2009, when the opera house, theater and the outdoor Annette Strauss Artist Square open. A lineup of opening events will be announced soon.

"What we have envisioned all along is that this be a very democratic space," Ms. Mitchell said of the overall plan. "It should feel welcoming to anybody. If I were coming in from a suburban location to downtown with my family, I should feel free to walk down the street, enter the plaza, buy a newspaper and enjoy it.

"We want this to be not only a big, splashy, premier performance place, but a space that is well used by Dallas citizens around the year."

Designs for the Annette Strauss square are being reworked in response to noise concerns from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, which performs and has offices in the Meyerson Symphony Center. The performing arts center design calls for moving the outdoor performance space behind the Meyerson, with its stage backed up against the northwest corner of the opera house.

And still to come from the city of Dallas are plans for the large urban park envisioned for a deck covering a two-block stretch of Woodall Rodgers Freeway northwest of the center.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

New Photos

Winspear
(check out the Red Glass.....ooooooooo)













































Wyly



























Both from another angle


----------



## rockin'.baltimorean (Jul 5, 2008)

city_thing said:


> Is the carpark really part of the design?... that's very, Texas.


lol......truly texas-like


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

seriously? Car park is the only thing you idiots are looking at? I mean, you have these theaters and parks and your worried about a car park that every city has, and those cities usually have 10 to 15+. I mean, seriously. WTF?


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

Here is the real photos of the angle everyone is throwing a fit about. And there is your parking garage, we call it Stone Henge. It is the base of what was going to be a 50 story tower in the late 80's tower boom in Dallas. Now it is closed and many kids use it for a skate park.


----------



## ames (Aug 10, 2007)

Very Texas.


----------



## incrediculous (Oct 4, 2008)

ames said:


> Very *Texas*.


I don't think this word means what you think it means.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

ames said:


> Very Texas.


Really? I mean, if shown this view for the first time and having no idea what any of this was, you would think Texas?


----------



## city_thing (May 25, 2006)

cars + freeways + giant car parks = Texas.

Sorry dude, I know Texas has some great places and is more than just a giant homage to the auto industry. But you guys really are mad about trucks and stuff...

Anyway, this is getting off topic. This is a great development, very exciting for Dallas I suspect.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

city_thing said:


> cars + freeways + giant car parks = Texas.


No, the Equals the United States of America where the State of Texas and California are as big if not bigger then 3/4th of the countries in Europe. We have to drive everywhere in our own cars because our country is to big for trains going everywhere. Seriously, you Europeans do not understand the USA internal workings at all, it is nothing like Europe.

Besides, you only see one car park, and it is small, very small.

And that is not a freeway, it is a connector between 3 freeways. European morons.

And we dont all still drive trucks, come look at a used car lot, it only has trucks because everyone is trading them in for fuel efficient smaller cars. You seem to think that you know everything about this region of this country based on stereotypes you hear, im surprised you didnt ask where we keep our horses!


----------



## ames (Aug 10, 2007)

when i said very taxes i meant in a good way i love everything about USA i been to lots of states, i know europe is different from US much old and out of date.


----------



## Big Texan (Jun 4, 2008)

ames said:


> when i said very taxes i meant in a good way i love everything about USA i been to lots of states, i know europe is different from US much old and out of date.


o.... then Cheers! :cheers1:


----------



## briker (Aug 21, 2008)

What a great project. Dallas looks great btw


----------



## city_thing (May 25, 2006)

I'm not even going to bother with a reply hno:


----------



## portyhead (Jan 10, 2008)

now if that damn woodall rogers park will get built. :cheers:


----------



## Arist (Oct 10, 2008)

it should be built soon


----------



## Arist (Oct 10, 2008)

With the Wyly, Insulation now covers the entire building. Soon we'll start to see the final siding put in place.




Thanks to NThomas76207


----------



## Arist (Oct 10, 2008)

And on the Winspear, More red tiles, more angles. Plus, the overhang is starting to take shape.




 



Thanks to NThomas76207 again


----------



## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Read about Dallas down town a bit and it seems like this arts district (which as you mentioned also includes offices and condos) is really only one aspect of a large strategy for the entire centre of the city. Lets hope the plans turn out to work out as intended.


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/07/dallas_center_for_the_performi.php

*New Center for Music, Theatre, Dance and Opera Opens with Weeklong Celebration October 12-18, 2009* 

DALLAS (July 6, 2009) - The much-anticipated Grand Opening of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts is just 100 days away. The most significant new performing arts complex to be built since New York City¹s Lincoln Center, the $354-million Center opens with a *weeklong celebration from October 12 through 18, 2009 * to launch its Inaugural Season. Daily outdoor performances, concerts and public art installations will be free and open to the public throughout the week, as will architectural forums with Center architects Norman Foster and Rem Koolhaas. Other highlights include events throughout the Dallas Arts District in recognition of its cultural completion.

...

The Grand Opening celebrations will begin on the morning of Monday, October 12, 2009, with a civic dedication. Held in the Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park, the 10-acre public park that unifies the venues of the Center, the civic dedication will launch the week of celebratory events. This event will be free and open to the public.

Following the civic dedication and each day throughout the Grand Opening week will be a series of outdoor performances and performance art. *Mass Ensemble, a multi-media performance group, will install a large-scale interactive instrument known as the Earth Harp on site,* stretching strings from the ground to the roofline of the Center¹s neighbor to the east, the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Mass Ensemble will perform on the instrument throughout the week and the public will be invited to participate and play. Grand Opening week will also feature* light shows by Luma and gravity-defying acrobatic performances by Anti-Gravity.*

Other highlights of Grand Opening week are *two architectural forums presented by the world-renowned architects * who designed the venues of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and in association with the Dallas Architectural Forum and the Nasher Sculpture Center. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas, one of the designers of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, will discuss the future of theatre design on the afternoon of Thursday, October 15 in the innovative Wyly Theatre. On Friday morning, October 16, Norman Foster, also winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, will present his designs for the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House and Annette Strauss Artist Square. Both of the architectural forums will be free and open to the public.

On Friday evening, October 16, the entire community will be invited to Sammons Park for a *free concert by renowned GRAMMY® Award-winning saxophonist David Sanborn*. The Grand Opening week will be capped off with the Grand Finale on Sunday, October 18, when the public will have the opportunity to tour the Winspear Opera House and Wyly Theatre, as well as experience a sampling of performances in each venue and in the Park with artists such as Latin GRAMMY® Award-winning flutist Nestor Torres. 

*Other Celebratory Dallas Arts District Events*
In recognition of the cultural completion of the Dallas Arts District, special visual and performing arts events will take place throughout 68-acre district celebrating the opening of the Center. The Nasher Sculpture Center will feature The Art of Architecture: Foster + Partners with a nod to one of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts' primary architects. The Dallas Museum of Art will present Performance/Art, an exhibition showcasing the work of cntemporary artists who have taken inspiration from the theater and opera in the creation of their painting, sculpture, video, and photography. The exhibition includes work by David Altmejd and Yinka Shonibare, among others, as well as Guillermo Kuitca, whom the Center has also commissioned to design the curtain for the Winspear Opera House. The Crow Collection of Asian Art will host Tibetan lamas, who, painting with sand, will create a mandala in the museum. The Dallas Center for Architecture will present a retrospective of the creation of the Dallas Arts District and the new Center. The Dallas Arts District, in association with the Center for Architecture, will also host walking tours of the District.

On Sunday, October 18, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will present a free afternoon concert, featuring Beethoven¹s Symphony No. 9, conducted by Music Director Jaap van Zweden. Additional soon-to-be-announced activities will also take place at the Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts, the prized arts magnet high school located in the heart of the Arts District.

...


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

sweet


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

http://www.wfaa.com/video/gmtgeneral-index.html?nvid=378802&noad=yes&shu=1


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

Photos of the near completed Wyly theater, Winspear and the progress on the Dallas City performance hall and a few apartments by City council member Angela Hunt

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angelahunt/sets/72157622099238850/show/





































Entrance



















Winspear



















City Performance Hall and apartments


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

The Dallas Center for Performing Arts is now to be called the *AT&T Performing Arts Center*:


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091509dnentcenter.42c5c73.html

"AT&T, which relocated its corporate headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas last year, promises to offer free Wi-Fi throughout the 10-acre Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park and the Annette Strauss Artist Square, as well as the center's three main venues – the Winspear Opera House, Wyly Theatre and City Performance Hall.

But, Nerenhausen said with a laugh, "patrons will still need to turn off their cellphones during performances."

Sarah Andreani, a spokeswoman for AT&T, said Monday that the technology will also include "mobile-messaging platforms" to keep patrons informed through text messaging and other ways "about things happening with the center," such as updates on upcoming performances."

...


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

Opening next week!

The Winspear chandelier:

http://www.kera.org/artandseek/content/2009/10/09/shooting-stars-at-the-winspear-opera-house/










The Winspear curtain:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/arts/design/04spea.html


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

awesome


----------



## Gaeus (Mar 21, 2007)

Ganis said:


> awesome


The prophecy is December 21, 2012. I love the development of Dallas. Go Texas!


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

AT&T Performing Arts Center was dedicated today!

*Winspear Opera House: Sleek venue welcomes patrons with sonic, visual intimacy*
02:16 PM CDT on Sunday, October 11, 2009
By SCOTT CANTRELL / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...nspear_1011gd.ART.State.Edition1.4bc18e2.html

The Winspear is a huge presence, spreading a finned sunscreen far beyond its functional footprint. The ruby-red inner drum, rising through the lobby and projecting above, is the Arts District's sole splash of color – and one of far too few anywhere near downtown.

But the Winspear, in effect a sleek modern interpretation of a Greek temple with portico, is also by far the most welcoming building in the Arts District.

That sheltering canopy, 60 feet above placid lawns punctuated with patches of native grasses and wide walkways, draws us in. So does the expanse of ground-to-roof glass wrapping a lobby crisscrossed with free-floating staircases that spin out multiple terraces. Glowing night and day, the red-glass core exudes excitement and mystery.

"Very much at the heart of what we're trying to do," says Spencer de Grey, an opera fan who headed Foster + Partners' design team for the Winspear, "is making the building not one that you have to pluck up your courage and enter, but very transparent."

That part of the design looks like an unqualified success, although visitors will ever wonder why the canopy fins vary so much in density. (Their main purpose is to shade the building from the blazing Dallas sun; they're sparer on the fringes.)

And bully for de Grey's insistence that even patrons parking in the underground garage enter the opera house through the same front doors as people walking in off the street. The elevators and escalator from the garage open into a glass-roofed porte-cochère leading into the lobby.

Apart from that ruby-red drum, rotated off the entrance axis, everything in the lobby is silver or gray. But stand just about anywhere on the ground floor and look up, and you'll see a lively counterpoint of grids and fan shapes. If the building draws you in from outside, on the inside it seems to draw all of Dallas inside, too. Views in all directions are exhilarating.

On the east side of the lobby will be a cafe, with three sections of glass wall that can be raised for an 84-foot opening to the outdoors. Above will be a sit-down restaurant, with smart flying-saucer lights hung overhead. A compact lecture-and-performance hall opens to the lobby and the outdoors.

...

As yet unseen are the stage curtain, decorated with colored squiggles by Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca, and the chandelier, an inverted cone of 320 lighted acrylic tubes that can retract into pinpricks of light.

How the Winspear meets its ultimate acoustical tests won't be known until this week's first performances, and, really, until the Dallas Opera mounts its season-opening Otello, starting Oct. 23. But reports from an initial tryout rehearsal are glowing. 



















*Wyly Theatre: Top to bottom, a vertical display of industrial rawness*
02:24 PM CDT on Sunday, October 11, 2009
By DAVID DILLON / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...acWyly_1011gd.ART.State.Edition1.4bc2ac5.html

The Wyly packs a lot of architectural punch into a small space. At nine stories – roughly 130 feet – it looks much taller than it is. That's because a little height goes a long way in the horizontal Arts District and because its silvery aluminum skin flows upward to a line of skyscrapers in the background, borrowing height from its neighbors.

Knowing that the Wyly could be upstaged by the Meyerson Symphony Center and the Winspear, architects Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus chose to go up rather than out, stacking lobby, stage, costume shop and offices on top of one another like hat boxes. Koolhaas has been playing the vertical city game since the publication of Delirious New York in the 1970s, and here was his chance to try it in the Wild West.

It is an unconventional plan, intriguing and high-risk, and right now it's impossible to know whether to grade it an "A" or an "F." The Wyly has been designed as a machine for performance that will challenge directors and probably confound some patrons with its industrial rawness and tight interior spaces, especially the single narrow staircase connecting lobby to main stage and a set of small, pokey elevators.

The moment you walk down the dust pan ramp from Flora Street to the lobby –one of the strangest theater entrances ever – you feel you've entered an engine room. No sofas and swag and warm soothing colors; only concrete floors and walls, sleek aluminum canopies and bare fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling like Luke Skywalker light sabers. This is tough, take-that architecture, uneven in its craftsmanship – the perfect joint has never been Koolhaas' grail – yet executed with admirable consistency from bottom to top. It's not just another trendy decorator touch, but a total aesthetic.

The main stage, seating 600, is directly above and packed with winches, pulleys, cables and catwalks. Seats can be flown up to the ceiling at the touch of a button; the stage floor can be configured from flat, proscenium or thrust in a few hours.

...


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

--


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

Some photos I found on Flickr

Winspear Opera House:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dallasterry/sets/72157622543407900/


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

video
http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/hp/index.html?nvid=406403&shu=1


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

new rendering for the Dallas City Performance Hall.


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

new rendering for the Dallas City Performance Hall.


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

New York Times review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/arts/design/15dallas.html?_r=1


----------



## Ganis (Jan 3, 2009)

video with speeches from both architects

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/hp/index.html?nvid=407351&shu=1


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

*AT&T Performing Arts Center's Wyly Theatre and Winspear Opera House impress crowds at free downtown Dallas fest*
12:18 AM CDT on Monday, October 19, 2009
By JOY TIPPING / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...stories/101909dnmetartsopenhouse.3f73e36.html

Scott Whittall practically vibrated with excitement as he strolled down Flora Street during the AT&T Performing Arts Center's "Sunday Spotlight" event, which topped a weeklong celebration of opening festivities for the center.

"They've created this amazing walk through the center of the arts," said Whittall, 45, of Dallas. Gesturing around at the crowds, he compared the vibrancy to that of New York City. "This is such a huge day for Dallas," he said. "We're so metropolitan now – with the opening of this center, Dallas has landed."

Thousands of visitors attended the daylong festival, which included tours of the new Wyly Theatre and Winspear Opera House, free admission at Arts District museums, hands-on art activities, and more than 50 free performances of dance, music, acrobatics and more.

Maria May, public relations director for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, estimated that the crowd numbered at least 25,000, based on the number of programs and other materials that volunteers handed out. But since not everyone got a program, that number is probably low, she said. 

...


----------



## dfwcre8tive (Oct 18, 2007)

--


----------



## systema magicum (Aug 23, 2008)

great project!!!


----------

