The Juilliard School Renovation and Expansion, New York
The master plan New York’s Lincoln Center decided to undertake in early 2000s required opening up the campus of performing arts centers and increasing engagement with the city at large. The renovation and expansion of the Juilliard School, which is, in addition to a performing arts school, also a place of study in multiple disciplines, was a particularly challenging project. But long before the team started analysis on all the different acoustical needs of the existing 1969 building and the additional 39,000 sq ft of space, the approach was laid down that would guide the entire capital plan.
“The interesting thing was, I go to Lincoln Center all the time and I thought I knew about it, but what you realize is there’s a whole hidden world out there,” says Sylvia Smith, senior partner at FXFOWLE, who designed the renovation in collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro. “Doing the architectural striptease, taking away the opacity, the solidness that was the base, peeling that away was a very early idea.”