Dallas recently unveiled the latest parts of its performing arts center, and invited the whole city to explore new arts venues.

Here are some photos from our explorations. The new architecture and design of The Winspear Opera House (bright red building above) is great. Details from the official site are below, but the fact that it the design is airy, yet shades a three acre area of the green space makes perfect sense in Dallas’s weather.

The intense red color is from five stories of beautiful red glass, with lights behind it to label floors, etc.

Inside, the lighting includes a retractable series of rods in the same pattern as the night sky’s stars, and the color and shape take old opera house forms and turn them in unexpected, inspiring, ways. Not many buildings still move me; this one does.

This link offers a good video tour, which gives better scale and scope than my photos...

http://www.dallasperformingarts.org/experiencethecenter/index.aspx

Stills, too…
http://www.dallasperformingarts.org/experiencethecenter/imagegallery.aspx

Here’s the official description of The Winspear -

"The design of the performance hall is a 21st century interpretation of the classic horseshoe configuration and will be engineered with flexible acoustics, and stage and orchestra pit arrangements for performances of opera, musical theatre, ballet and other dance forms. The Winspear Opera House will also include the Nancy Hamon Education and Recital Hall and will provide extensive back-ofhouse support spaces and administrative offices.

Organizationally, the Winspear Opera House reinvents the conventional form of the opera house, inverting its closed, hierarchical structure to create a transparent, publicly welcoming series of spaces, which wrap around the rich red glass drum of the performance hall. The goal is to create a building that will not only be fully integrated with the cultural life of Dallas, but will become a destination in its own right for the non-opera going public, with a restaurant and café that will be publicly accessible throughout the day.

Radiating from the Winspear Opera House on all sides, the Center’s Grand Portico will provide
shade over the Simmons Glass Façade and part of Annette Strauss Artist Square, creating new outdoor spaces for visitors to gather and relax. The solar canopy’s louvers will be arranged at fixed angles following the path of the sun, calculated to provide optimal shade for the glass façade and outdoor spaces throughout the day. By eliminating direct sunlight on the façade and by creating a cooler microclimate around the building, the canopy will significantly reduce the energy requirements of the Winspear Opera House."