Centro Nacional de las Artes

Centro Nacional de las Artes


This new all-in-one performing arts campus in México City houses seven visual and performing arts colleges on a single site, where several strikingly unusual buildings present a dramatic and colorful architectural collage. FDA was the theatre consultant for all of them. We collaborated with six prestigious architectural teams, and were responsible for simultaneously coordinating planning, design, and equipment for seven performance spaces ranging in size from 200 to 1,000 seats for the Schools of Theatre, Dance, Music, and Visual Arts.

Student and professional productions take place in two 1,000 and 500-seat multipurpose halls. The campus also includes a 600-seat recital hall, 250-seat drama theatre, a flexible 200-250-seat dance theatre, a black box theatre, and an informal performance space largely reserved for dance. Each school has its own individual rehearsal spaces, offices, classrooms, and administrative facilities. Using the fast-track construction process, the entire campus was built in just over six months.

  • Client: Government of Mexico
  • Architect: Ricardo Legorretta, Enrique Norten and others
  • Completion Year: 1995
  • Location: Mexico City, Mexico
  • Acoustician: Jaffe Holden Acoustics
  • Capacity: 1090 seats

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Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall


An American landmark to generations of theatregoers, the Art Deco Radio City Music Hall – home of the famed “Rockettes” – was in need of a thorough functional overhaul. Its owners asked the design team to replace equipment that was originally designed in 1932 with lighting and rigging systems up to modern standards.

But they also wanted to maintain the historic appearance of the glamorous theatre. In a phased effort that shut the hall only briefly between productions, FDA upgraded lighting, hydraulics, video technology, and HDTV capability to help bring more of Radio City Music Hall to the world.

Whereas the original stage lighting system was almost 70 years old, the new system is among the most advanced available. It has substantially reduced labor costs. This new system is capable of controlling over 4,000 devices by using an ethernet to distribute digital multiplex and other digital data throughout the theatre.

Work was completed over the Summer of 1999. Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular is back. And now the hall has the capacity and equipment to expand its program offerings significantly in the new century.

  • Client: Cablevision
  • Architect: Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates
  • Completion Year: 1999
  • Location: New York, New York
  • Acoustician: Jaffe Holden Acoustics
  • Capacity: 6,000 seats

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Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Ertegun Atrium

Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ertegun Atrium


Jazz at Lincoln Center renovated the public spaces in Frederick P. Rose Hall, its home in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The project commenced in July 2015, with an estimated cost of $18.5 million and a scheduled completion of December. The redesign comes a decade after the opening of Rose Hall.

The Ertegun Atrium features improved visibility of Columbus Circle and a terrace with room for small ensembles and café seating. Two new glass staircases were installed to improve the flow between the hall’s two floors. And the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame — named for Ahmet’s brother and business partner, who died in 1989 — was remaded as a more interactive experience.

  • Client: Jazz at Lincoln Center
  • Architect: Ennead Architects
  • Completion Year: 2015
  • Location: New York, New York
  • Capacity:
    Seated: 200
    Reception: 450

Links


SUNY Potsdam Performing Arts Center

SUNY Potsdam Performing Arts Center


FDA collaborated with Pfeiffer Partners on the new Performing Arts Center at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam. The building accommodates the theatre and dance departments, and integrates the teaching, performance, and administrative needs of the arts school. The new building connects to the existing Crane Music Complex, fostering student and faculty interaction among the performing arts programs on campus.

The new state-of-the-art facility includes a 350-seat proscenium theatre with fixed seating; a 100-seat studio theatre; and 4,000 square feet of dance performance space with flexible seating on telescopic risers. Front-of-house and support spaces include a public lobby, a cafe, two large studios, a physical conditioning room, a recording studio, and performer support spaces, including dressing rooms and a green room. Back-of-house areas include a scene shop, a costume shop, and associated storage. Classrooms include an Education Lab for training teachers in the arts, a Digital/Audio Studio, a Design/Drafting Lab, a CAD Lab, and a Lighting Lab. The new building also houses faculty offices and student organization space. The project broke ground in late 2011.

  • Client: SUNY Potsdam
  • Architect: Pfeiffer Partners
  • Completion Year: 2013
  • Location: Potsdam, New York
  • Building Size: 92,000 s.f.
  • Capacity: 350 seats

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Related Projects


University of Pittsburgh, Charity Randall Theater

University of Pittsburgh, Charity Randall Theater


The Charity Randall Theatre is part of the Steven Foster Memorial at the University of Pittsburgh. The 480 theatre is the home of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Theatre, the Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre, and other local groups. In 2003, FDA worked with WTW Architects on a $3.5 million renovation of the historic performance space. Renovation work included new seating, enhanced stagehouse structure, new manual counterweight rigging, and a new stage lighting system. The major physical change to the theatre was the introduction of a forestage lighting catwalk and rigging support steel, which drastically improved safety and technical flexibility.

  • Client: University of Pittsburgh
  • Architect: WTW Architects
  • Completion Year: 2002
  • Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • Capacity: 478 seats

Links


Transylvania University, Lucille C. Little Theater

Transylvania University
Lucille C. Little Theater


This technically innovative facility, completed in 1999, provides teaching and performance space for the Transylvania University drama program. The 150-seat theater has movable seating risers that permit a variety of performance and seating configurations, from traditional proscenium-style, thrust, arena, in-the-round and anything in between. The space features include a computerized lighting and sound system, a removable floor section, and a wire rope grid that allows students to safely hang lights and scenery without the use of ladders or lifts.

This flexible studio theater includes storage areas, a scene shop area and tech office, two dressing rooms, a green room, a kitchen, a well-equipped sound and light booth, and a spacious lobby.

  • Client: Transylvania University
  • Architect: Johnson Romanowitz Architects
  • Completion Year: 1999
  • Location: Lexington, Kentucky
  • Acoustician: Acoustic Dimensions
  • Building Size: 11,000 s.f.
  • Capacity: 200 seats

Links


Howard Community College | Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center

Howard Community College
Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center


FDA was hired to collaborate on the design of a new visual and performing arts center for Howard Community College’s arts and humanities programs. The Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center, designed with Wilson Butler Architects, is home to three performance venues, two art galleries, two dance studios and a suite of instructional facilities. The college’s existing Smith Theatre was the anchor for the new building and the instructional and support facilities for the Horowitz Center were planned to be shared among the venues.

The brand new performance spaces include the Studio Theatre which seats up to 250, the Monteabaro Recital Hall which seats up to 119, and the Dance Rehearsal Studio which is often used for intimate performances. FDA was also involved in a later renovation of the existing Smith Theatre which seats up to 424.

  • Client: Howard Community College
  • Architect: Wilson Butler Architects
  • Arch. of Record: Design Collabrative, Inc.
  • Completion Year: 2006
  • Location: Columbia, Maryland
  • Acoustician: Shen Milson Wilke
  • Building Size: 77,750 s.f.
  • Capacity: 119 seats

Links


Landmark Theatre (Stagehouse Expansion)

Landmark Theatre (Stagehouse Expansion)


The Landmark Theatre, originally known as Loew’s State Theater, is an historic theater from the era of “movie palaces,” in Syracuse, New York. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb, it is the city’s only surviving example of the opulent theatrical venues of the 1920s and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

From October 2010 to November 2011, a $16 million renovation project expanded the backstage area, also providing new dressing rooms and green rooms to attract larger, longer-running Broadway tours and other events to the theater. The new expanded stagehouse features a new manual counterweight rigging system. The aging, recessed loading dock in the theater’s rear on South Clinton Street was removed and replaced with a new two-bay dock. New side lighting (box boom positions) in the seating were installed, as well as safely accessible forestage rigging points for lighting trusses and speakers. The box office was relocated from Jefferson Street to Salina Street, next to the lobby entrance and the original wooden ticket booth, both disused since its Loews State days.

  • Architect: Holmes King Kallquist & Associates
  • Acoustician: AVL Designs
  • Completion Year: 2011
  • Location: Syracuse, New York
  • Capacity: 3000 seats

Links


University of Oklahoma — Elsie C. Brackett Theatre, Rupel J. Jones Fine Arts Center

University of Oklahoma — Elsie C. Brackett Theatre
Rupel J. Jones Fine Arts Center


2015 marked the completion of a multi-million dollar renovation and re-opening of newly dedicated Elsie C. Brackett Theatre. The 570-seat proscenium space, with flexible apron and thrust configurations, accommodates a variety of performing arts, including musicals, opera, ballet, and drama.

Renovations to 40-year-old theatre include new seating and carpeting, repainted wall and ceiling surfaces, as well as the installation of new wall finishes, a new grand curtain, a new air handling unit, and other interior improvements. Lobby restrooms have been refurbished and expanded.

Back-of-house features include stage lifts that have been upgraded to the latest technology; a completely new theatrical lighting system; state-of-the-art sound equipment; and a replacement of the rigging system, including six new motorized hoists.

  • Client: University of Oklahoma
  • Architect: GSB, Inc.
  • Completion Year: 2015
  • Location: Norman, Oklahoma
  • Capacity: 570 seats

Links


Punahou School, Twigg-Smith Pavilion

Punahou School, Twigg-Smith Pavilion


This 6th grade Creative Learning Center offers a gathering place for students from across Punahou’s Case Middle School for performances, film screenings, convocations, lectures and various other activities. The Twigg-Smith Pavilion holds up to 400 people, with 175 fixed seats and a custom-designed set of movable bleachers with backrests for greater flexibility. The Pavilion has become one of the most vibrant and well-used spaces on the Middle School campus.

The pavilion honors alumni and Trustee Thurston Twigg-Smith, who graduated in 1938, and whose great-great-grandfather was a Trustee from 1851 to 1862.

  • Client: Punahou School
  • Architect: John Hara Associates
  • Completion Year: 2004
  • Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
  • Capacity: 400 seats

Links


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