DS+R will deliver a concept for facility, which will become the permanent home for the London Symphony Orchestra, by December 2018.

While 2015 may be drawing to a close, Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) is just getting into the swing of things. Last Thursday evening, the Manhattan performing arts complex cut the ribbon on a multi-million dollar lobby renovation—rechristened the Mica and Ahmet Ertegun Atrium—in a star-spangled holiday celebration.

Lincoln Center spent more than $1 billion on a series of renovations by Diller Scofido + Renfro, while leaving two of its largest buildings untouched. Now it plans to spend $500 million to renovate the interior of David Geffen Hall.

Built up on a plinth, and clad in relentless swaths of travertine, Lincoln Center was once considered by many to be a remote acropolis of culture.

The idea that inspired Lincoln Center began during the Roaring 20s, when John D. Rockefeller, Jr. — pious and penitent son of the rascally robber baron — hoovered up blocks of Midtown Manhattan for a state-of-the-art Metropolitan Opera House.