Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 37, Ed. 1 Friday, January 26, 2007 Page: 32 of 56
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Fresh Italian, Our Place Or Yours
style design
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HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN
THE HIDEAWAY!
We salute the loyal staff
and entertainers during the
challenges of 2006 and
extend our heartfelt thanks
and congratulations
to Paul Minze, the
Hideaway's new owner.
From all the "Regulars
Let the good times roll!
IftllFII
Dancing about architecture
The daring performance spaces in the upcoming downtown Arts District
center promise to revolutionize theater, opera and ballet in Dallas
Dallas Center for the Performing Arts/Foster+Partners
AN IMAGE OF THE FUTURE: While the exterior of the Winspear Opera House — with its arrestingly colorful facade and
unusual oblong shape — is the height of modernism, the horseshoe design of the performance hall inside harkens to
traditional opera houses of Europe with a more intimate relationship between the audience and the performers.
By Arnold Wayne Jones Staff Writer
Dallas has claimed a formal downtown Arts
District since 1983, when the Dallas Museum of
Art moved to its current location at Harwood and
Ross avenues. (It was followed in 1989 by the
opening of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony
Center and in 2003 by the Nasher Sculpture
Center.)
But despite the occasional productions at the
Arts District Theater (it was razed in 2005), the
performing arts—theater, dance, ballet, opera —
have never really established a foothold in the 62-
acre, 17-block neighborhood that runs along the
south edge of Woodall Rodgers Freeway.
The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts will
change that.
Until now, the $275 million development —
which has been in the planning stages since 2000
—has been an abstraction: diagrams and concep-
tual renderings that hint at the real thing. But
since the groundbreaking last October, the proj-
ect is becoming a reality.
In addition to the current Annette Strauss Artist
Square outdoor amphitheater and the expanding
Booker T. Washington Performing Arts Magnet
High School, the centerpieces of the project are
the 2,200-seat Winspear Opera House and the
600-seat Wyly Theater. (Plans for a third facility,
the City Performance Hall, have not yet been
announced.) It's clear that both have the potential
to reinvigorate the performing arts scene in
Dallas.
The Winspear, which seats fewer patrons than
the Music Hall at Fair Park is conceived in a tra-
ditional horseshoe shape inspired by La Scala
and other European opera houses with modern
adaptations. The building itself is designed as an
oblong barrel in brilliant red, and the outdoor
plaza will be shaded by louvered panels extend-
ing away from the building like a canopy.
A highlight of the interior will be its flyspace
and backstage storage, which will allow multiple
productions to be mounted in repertory, allowing
more flexibility in scheduling ballets, operas and
touring productions. (Officials anticipate that the
theater will be in use 347 days a year.) The facil-
ities are also being designed with technological
innovations to allow broadcast and recording of
performances without audience disruption. The
Dallas Opera and the Texas Ballet Theater will be
the resident companies,
The Wyly Theater, slated to become the new
home to the Dallas Theater Center, Ballet
Folklorico and the Dallas Black Dance Theatre,
boasts a revolutionary vertical design. Encased in
slivers of aluminum and looking like a giant ice
cube, it will feature an adaptable performance
space including a stage surrounded by acoustical
glass that can be opened to allow any perform-
ance to make use of the outdoors. Seats can be
easily reconfigured to change the shape of the
stage to accommodate a variety of production
needs.
Nearly everything about the designs is intend-
ed to maximize versatility and ensure that the
specific needs of the resident companies were
incorporated into the facilities. The designers —
Foster+Partners for the Winspear and Rem
Koolhaas and other firms for the Wyly —
worked in close coordination with Dallas Opera
director Karen Stone and DTC managing direc-
tor Mark Hadley.
Whether the execution will stand up to the
concept is a question that won't be answered for
a few years — the grand opening won't be until
October 2009. One big question mark is the traf-
fic pattern, which will require access along the
Woodall Rodgers access road and could bottle-
neck during performances.
Aficionados of the arts and architecture can
even evaluate the designs themselves when the
new Preview Center opens.
Located inside the Trammell Crow Building
within the Arts District, the Preview Center will
host public viewings on Feb. 2 and 3, and people
can see for themselves what the result of all the
construction along the corridor will be. The cen-
ter will later determine a regular schedule to
allow everyone to see what the Center for the
Performing Arts will look like without having to
wait until 2009.
Preview Center at Traimnell Crow Building,
2001 Ross Ave. Public viewings Feb. 2-3, 10
a.m. 5 p.m. (additional public days will be
scheduled later). Free. 214-954-9925.
32 I dallasvoice.com I 01.26.0';
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Nash, Tammye. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 37, Ed. 1 Friday, January 26, 2007, newspaper, January 26, 2007; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth238945/m1/32/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.