On Monday, Lincoln Center officials revealed a new $550 million plan to remake the New York Philharmonic’s home, David Geffen Hall. The revamp, with Toronto-based Diamond Schmitt Architects focusing on the performance space and the New York firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects designing the public areas, will leave the stately but modern exterior of the 1962 Max Abramovitz–designed building virtually untouched. It is the latest in a series of proposals meant to address the hall’s long-criticized acoustics, lack of intimacy, and its drab interior ambiance. Among these earlier efforts was a 2015 scheme by Diamond Schmitt and London’s Heatherwick Studio, chosen after an invited competition but then abandoned two years ago.
Diamond Schmitt, whose performing arts spaces include the new Mariinsky Theater, in St. Petersburg will transform Geffen’s boxy interior with curvilinear blond wood surfaces to create what principal Gary McCluskie describes as a hybrid of vineyard and shoebox concert hall types: The proscenium will be eliminated, the number of seats reduced from 2,700 to 2,200, and the stage will be moved forward 25 feet with balconies wrapping around it. These moves will enhance the space’s resonance and bring most of the audience within 100 feet of the performers—close enough to see the faces of the orchestra members and observe the interaction among them, according to Paul Scarborough, a principal at Akustiks, the project’s acoustician. (Other consultants include Fisher Dachs, a theater planning and design firm.)
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