If you’ve made your way to Woodall Rogers lately, there’s no possibility that the large red cylinder has missed your glance. The tall drum known as the Winspear stands high over Dallas’ arts district, with its canopy reaching over Sammons Park. And just beyond it stands the futuristic Wyly.
Both winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House and the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre are the two new additions to Dallas’ arts center. Formally known as the Dallas Center for Performing Arts, the new district thrusts into the future with the new architecture and title of AT&T Performing Arts Center.
The opening week, Oct. 12-18, welcomed the two buildings to join the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center to become the world’s largest arts district in an urban setting, Meadows Dean José Bowen said.
The expanded district is one way Dallas is maturing to a more nationally respected city, and Bowen believes SMU students can have something to do with it.
“It will be of great benefit to our school if we can help Dallas become known as a center for the creation of new works, building a community that nurtures its own and tolerates artistic risk the same way we embrace entrepreneurial risk,” he said.
The Meadows School of the Arts has been involved with the Dallas Arts District with the annual spring event, Meadows at the Meyerson. In addition, Paul Phillips, the conductor of the Meadows Symphony Orchestra, is the standby conductor for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Various musicians of the DSO also teach at the music school on campus.
Meadows will continue its presence in the urban art district on March 20, 2010, as dance and music students will perform in the Winspear Opera House, Bowen said.
The new addition to the Dallas Arts District is just one more reason to be a college student in this city, according to SMU senior Hanna Nelson.
“The new buildings give the arts district an exciting feel. It gives SMU students a fun way to experience culture: It’s fun, but also helps us learn about other societies.”
The Winspear Opera House, built by Foster + Partners, has attracted passer-by’s attention since the round cylinder first went up in the heart of the Arts District. In its completion, interest in the building has only grown. According to a D Magazine interview with Foster partner James McGrath, this attention is highly intended.
“The red drum helps it stand out. It can’t be mistaken for a commercial or institutional building,” he said.
Near the flashy Winspear, stands the smaller, less colorful Wyly Theatre. This building, designed by Joshua Prince-Ramus, partner in charge, and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas, sets itself apart from the classic and flashy arts district with silver fluorescent tubes on its outsides.
Both the exterior and interior appear to have been designed with simplicity in mind. D Magazine writer John King compared the entrances of Wyly and the Meyerson in his article, explaining how the DSO’s performance hall welcomes its visitors as soon as they enter the doors. The “grand staircase” of the Wyly, he explains, is like “entering an attic: tight and dark with the walls clad in chain-metal mesh attached to magnetic wallpaper.”
This style was carefully designed, Prince-Ramus explained to King.
“A lot of our work centers around the notion that if you focus on ushering forward a process, pushing the limits, you often will come to a conclusion that will transcend,” Prince-Ramus said.
SMU students can take the Dart Rail from Mockingbird Station to Pearl St. and walk two blocks to the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
Even more is coming to Dallas’ arts center, according to its Web site. Annette Strauss Artist Square, an outdoor performing arts center, is set to open in 2010. Also in planning is the City Performance Hall, planned to open in 2011, where performances of theatre, music and dance will take place.
