The New Lincoln Center*

Transforming Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center is the world’s leading performing arts center, uniting on one campus 12 of the finest performing arts and educational organizations located anywhere. After nearly five decades of artistic excellence and service to its community, the nation, and the world, Lincoln Center has embarked upon a major transformation initiative to fully modernize its concert halls and public spaces, renew its 16-acre urban campus, and reinforce its vitality for decades to come.

Much of Lincoln Center’s infrastructure and many of its notable performance and educational facilities required renovation, and in some cases, considerable expansion. Changes in public needs and interests also inspired a thorough reconsideration of the campus’ original design in the context of current and future programming priorities. These factors became the framework for a campus-wide planning initiative that resulted in major changes along West 65th Street and the campus’ Columbus Avenue frontage, scheduled to be substantially completed by the end of Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary celebration in 2009-2010.

A related project is the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, located between Broadway and Columbus Avenue and West 62nd and 63rd Streets. Formerly known as the Harmony Atrium when the space originally opened in 1979, it was one of approximately 503 Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) in New York City created under a longstanding program that offers zoning incentives for buildings to provide accessible public spaces. The transformation of the Harmony Atrium into a vibrant new public space includes a visitors’ and ticketing facility housing the Donald and Barbara Zucker Box Office, and is home to an array of programs, services, and amenities designed to welcome, inform, and entertain local residents, the general public, and the thousands of people who visit Lincoln Center and its surrounding community every day. (See David Rubenstein Atrium information below for more details.)

In addition, the shared home of New York City Ballet and New York City Opera has been modernized to enhance the artistic and visitor experience. Formerly Lincoln Center’s New York State Theater, the venue has been renamed the David H. Koch Theater in honor of his $100 million lead gift to the joint capital campaigns of the two companies.

David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center*

West 65th Street

Designed by the critically acclaimed architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with FXFOWLE Architects, the plan unites the street with the surrounding cityscape. The design embraces the spirit of the original 1960’s architecture, while incorporating elements of transparency to create a new language celebrating the vitality of the cultural complex today. The West 65th Street design opens up Lincoln Center and encourages the interaction of thousands of visitors and more than 5,000 artists, teachers, and students who work and practice every day in the 81 practice and 80 rehearsal rooms, 13 dance studios, and 13 stages and concert halls that border West 65th Street. In addition to the extensive renovation of Alice Tully Hall, the design will create a “Street of the Arts” lined on both sides with new building facades, innovative visitor information systems, dramatic lighting, and new indoor and outdoor facilities for dining and refreshments. The project includes major facility expansion, including: Illumination Lawn, a sloping green public lawn that forms the roof of a pavilion housing a new destination restaurant as well as the Elinor Bunin-Monroe Film Center and Lincoln Center offices; the shaded Barclays Capital Grove on Hearst Plaza (formerly known as the North Plaza); and a dramatic new street-level identity for six resident organizations: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Theater and the School of American Ballet.

Also included is the extensive renovation of Alice Tully Hall. One of the most popular venues at Lincoln Center—hosting more than 750 activities a year—the Hall had not undergone a major renovation since its opening in 1969. To address its outdated public amenities and inadequate performer support, Alice Tully Hall has undergone a major aesthetic and functional transformation to make it a more welcoming destination.

Josie Robertson Plaza/Columbus Avenue

Drawing upon the same design vocabulary and palette of materials being used in Lincoln Center’s West 65th Street transformation—glass, travertine, new landscape features, and integrated information technologies for enhancing the visitor experience—the approach to Lincoln Center from Columbus Avenue has been designed to further unite the campus with the surrounding cityscape.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro in association with Beyer Blinder Belle created the plan to rebuild this primary entryway along Columbus Avenue, and to upgrade and re-energize the adjacent Josie Robertson Plaza. The new design reconfigures the vehicular and pedestrian approach to the Plaza from Columbus Avenue by sinking the existing service road that leads up to the Plaza below street level (now the Roslyn and Elliot Jaffe Family Drive), and by dramatically expanding the Grand Stair to the Plaza from the street. Beneath the Grand Stair, vehicles traveling south down the Jaffe Drive can pick-up and drop-off visitors at the weather-protected Bruce and Robbi Toll Porte-cochère entrance, which offers access to stairs, escalators, or an elevator up to Josie Robertson Plaza. Cars exit at 62nd St. and Columbus.

Considered by many as the main lobby to the entire campus, Josie Robertson Plaza—the open public space with its central Revson Fountain set into a distinctive patterned pavement designed by Philip Johnson—has been updated. The Plaza pavement masonry has been totally renovated, and the Fountain enhanced with new lighting and technical upgrades.

The Charles B. Benenson Grove, a new 3,500-square-foot green space adjacent to the David H. Koch Theater at 62nd Street and Columbus Avenue, continues Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s innovative and dynamic design to transform the Lincoln Center campus, creating a more inviting entrance at the southeast portion of the campus and providing a shaded and quiet place to congregate.

David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center

This innovative public visitor space design by the renowned architectural firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien reflects a respect for materials used throughout Lincoln Center and achieves an open, accessible, and inviting environment that is an essential goal of the redevelopment of the 16-acre campus. The Atrium is the first LEED certified “green” building at Lincoln Center.

An important new resource for neighbors, visitors, students and Lincoln Center patrons, the redesigned Atrium is open every day. It offers a community gathering place with ample seating; free weekly performances as part of Target ® Free Thursdays and free Meet the Artist performances on the first Saturday of each month; food service from Chef Tom Colicchio’s ‘wichcraft café; the departure point for tours of the Lincoln Center campus; a staffed Information Desk; public restrooms; free WiFi; and a dynamic media wall.

A signature feature of the 7,000-square-foot public space is the Donald and Barbara Zucker Box Office. The centralized box office, for the first time, enables audiences to purchase same-day tickets, with discounts of 25% or 50%, to available Lincoln Center performances. Interactive internet and telephone ticketing kiosks also offer access to available full-price tickets for all events presented on the campus.

*Renderings by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in association with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners and with FXFOWLE Architects; David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center renderings by Tod Williams Billie Tsien; Photos by Mark Bussell