They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center (21 page)
Authors: Reynold Levy
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redevelopment project was stuck in the quicksand of controversy, extricating it required overcoming extensive negative print and broadcast coverage. Conversely, our success was aided and abetted by continued lavish public praise of each and every completed constituent project and of Lincoln Center’s physical transformation as a whole. Donors like to associate themselves with a winner. The chattering classes were beginning to think that when it came to architecture, design, and construction, Lincoln Center could do little wrong.
What follows are the views of three important critics about what Lincoln Center was able to accomplish for artists, audiences, students, and tourists. Clearly, the close of the year 2010 found Goldberger,
Kennicott, and Tommasini reflecting on what Lincoln Center had wrought:
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Their [D S + R] reconstruction of Josie Robertson Plaza, the central plaza of [Lincoln Center], brilliantly enhances the classical symmetry of this much admired but deeply flawed public space, yet at the same time, it sends clear signals that a new and different era arrived. Rarely has a change to a landmark been simultaneously so powerful and so subtle.
—Paul Goldberger,
New Yorker
, December 16, 2010
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And even on a blustery winter day, the 16-acre arts center, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009, is looking livelier, smarter, hipper and more inviting—it is a change that should be studied closely not just by the Kennedy Center and Washington’s public art institutions, but by anyone who cares about the peculiar freedoms of urban life.
The architects have lightened and enlivened the space, opened it up to the city and added touches of humor and eccentricity that suggest both a subtle aesthetic and a playful one. [They understand that] the arts are about access, exposure, serendipity and comingling.
—Philip Kennicott,
Washington Post
, December 29, 2010
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Now the main stairs to the plaza slope gently down to the Columbus Avenue sidewalk, creating an entrance to the center that practically shouts, “Step right up.”
. . . the radical transformation of [Alice Tully Hall’s] lobby is a triumph. What used to look like a bunker hidden under a pointless pedestrian bridge has become an airy, spacious gathering space with tall windowed walls.
—Anthony Tommasini,
New York Times
, December 29, 2010
And this critical acclaim had its counterpart in professional awards and recognition of all kinds. A partial list appears in
Appendix B
.
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hired Diller + Scofidio, the firm employed only about a dozen full-time employees and had yet to design a completed building. In fact, our engagement of their studio took place even before Renfro had become a partner. Although the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston was a client Diller + Scofidio had acquired before we retained the firm, when Lincoln Center selected it a shovel had hardly hit the ground near Boston Harbor. And though Diller + Scofidio was enjoying a Whitney Museum twenty-year retrospective exhibit on its work, little seemed relevant to our massive project.
There were stage installations. There were set designs. There were conceptual sketches. There was the “Blur” building, a creation on the sea of nothing more than fog and a bar featuring more brands of the world’s bottled water than had ever been gathered in one place. Stuff like that.
It is no wonder that architects and critics expressed surprise that Lincoln Center would hire Diller, rather than the much “safer” finalists like Foster and Partners, Richard Meier, and Frank Gehry. All of these competitors had substantial track records to their credit. Of real buildings, commercial and residential. Of prestigious awards, like the Pritzker. Of avid and well-known clients. Of sterling name recognition. What possessed the Lincoln Center selection committee to opt for the relatively unknown and unproven?
Well, as it happened, there is no single person during my tenure at Lincoln Center from whom I learned more than from Liz Diller: about different ways to see space; about the relationship between human beings and the built environment; and about breaking down barriers, real and perceived, between Lincoln Center and the city around it.
I have always been taken by Oscar Wilde’s lament: “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” So Diller found in me a kindred soul when she wished to dip into Lincoln Center’s pocketbook to achieve her vision. But that soul was lodged in an owner’s representative. Me. And in that role I could not appreciate the value of everything at virtually any cost, often an architect’s (or an
artist’s) propensity. I needed to avoid spending beyond the established budget.
So there was a natural tension between us. “Don’t let the very best be the enemy of the very good, Liz,” I would declaim, often in vain, at least initially. Eventually, Diller would find a way to achieve her aesthetic, functional, or design objective in rough proximity to what Lincoln Center could afford. Rarely were her ideas less than intriguing, imaginative, and thoughtful. She was a resourceful advocate for them, and as good as Lincoln Center’s redevelopment turned out to be, dozens upon dozens of additional excellent design ideas were left on the cutting room floor.
On more than one occasion, Diller would utter words that strike fear into the heart of any client, like, “What I am about to propose has never been done before, so I cannot take you to see something similar. It simply does not exist.” The curvature of the glass frontage in Alice Tully Hall had no precedent. Its “blushing” walls, which change color as the time for a performance approaches, did not exist elsewhere. The white text illuminating the grand stairs on the approach to Josie Robertson Plaza is unique to Lincoln Center, as is the scrolling text across the enlarged 65th Street entrance to the main campus. The dramatically contoured Tisch Illumination Lawn on the rooftop of Lincoln Ristorante has no equal.
These design ideas were greeted by some as impractical, too costly to build or maintain, or simply unnecessary. Diller persisted. She built exact prototypes to demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that the stair text could be seen even in the haze of a 98-degree, steamy dog day in August, and that it could be maintained even when rain turned to ice. Or that the grass roof of Lincoln would not leak into the restaurant and was not dangerous to the urban climber in search of adventure, ascending or descending.
Beyond Diller’s extraordinary strength as an architect, she had other very attractive qualities. She spoke compellingly and wrote persuasively. Her mind was restlessly creative. Her commitment to quality in design was ceaseless. She regularly crossed disciplinary, cultural, and geographic boundaries. Diller combines idealism with practicality. Something of a polymath, she holds a tenured post at Princeton University,
and she and her husband, Ric Scofidio, were the first architects ever to win a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Prize.”
It was these qualities of mind and creative spirit that we detected in Liz and her colleagues. They also exhibited energy, ambition, and the capacity to listen and to learn. Diller expressed a fervent desire to improve what was best about Lincoln Center, rather than replace it. She delivered fully on that expression of intent.
As Lincoln Center’s redevelopment began to be realized, so did recognition of D S + R’s work in the media and by prospective clients. Now, Diller Scofidio + Renfro are contracted to design or have already completed the Henry Kravis Business School at Columbia University; the Eli Broad Museum in Los Angeles; the High Line; the Granoff School of the Arts at Brown University; the new campus of the Columbia Medical School; the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art; and performing arts centers at both the University of California at Berkeley and Rice University.
But Lincoln Center really won an admirer in the person of Steve Ross, a highly valued Lincoln Center trustee and the chair of Related Companies. Steve hired D S +R to design their first-ever office building as part of his ambitious Hudson Yards Project. He also commissioned the firm to become the architect of record for the Culture Shed, a new indoor-outdoor entertainment and exhibition center, one on which the Bloomberg administration bestowed $75 million of New York City funds just before the mayor’s term in office expired.
The very idea that Lincoln Center’s nonprofit architectural and entrepreneurial forays were being validated by well-known and successful developer billionaires looking for solutions to their own personal, civic, and business undertakings was a special form of endorsement.
We could not be more pleased for Liz Diller, Ric Scofidio, Charles Renfro, and their talented colleagues at D S + R. They are helping to transform the look and the feel of some of New York’s most important institutions, neighborhoods, and public spaces. They are also venturing far outside New York City, to California, Texas, Rhode Island, Rio de Janeiro, and China, among other places. It is nice to know that Lincoln Center was present at their validation and contributed to their studio’s success.
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that the total makeover of Lincoln Center has been viewed as a triumph, the victory is attributable to uncommon teamwork in staff and trustee ranks across many constituents. It required them to summon energy, persistence, and flexibility. It demanded of those of us at Lincoln Center even more.
During the course of design and construction and intensive fund-raising, we were preoccupied with refreshing and expanding Lincoln Center’s far-flung arts presentation program. We were also intent on strengthening our staff and board of directors. We drew a bead on managing the campus in ways that would generate pride in its maintenance and applause for converting a drain on constituent resources into operating surpluses. We were bound and determined to revamp the economic model for our own operations. There was much else on our minds and agendas and no risk of being accused of indolence.
But concurrently, the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Opera were otherwise occupied. Working through the distractions and upheaval they caused while keeping an eye on the prize of campus transformation and solidarity tested our mettle and our patience.
The stories of how badly the New York Philharmonic strayed off course and how severe were the self-inflicted wounds of the New York City Opera have never been fully told. Occurring as they did on my watch, describing and analyzing both episodes is, I suppose, a point of personal privilege. More important, it is also an obligation.
The only saving grace of both adventures that occurs to me is the lessons that can be learned from them, providing a sobering contrast to the transformative work accomplished across the Lincoln Center campus.
Noah’s principle says: No more credit for predicting rain; credit only for building arks.
—Anonymous
I
t was a Thursday afternoon—May 29, 2003, at 3:00 p.m., to be precise—when Paul Guenther, the chairman of the board of the New York Philharmonic, came to my office to meet with me and Bruce Crawford, Lincoln Center’s chair. I had just completed my first full year of service as Lincoln Center’s president.
His purpose was to report that, after studying all the alternatives, the New York Philharmonic did not wish to spend some $20–$40 million for mechanical, infrastructure, and cosmetic purposes on Avery Fisher Hall. Neither did it wish to demolish Avery Fisher Hall entirely and erect a new building and venue inside it. Nor did it wish to have designed and built a brand-new auditorium within the existing structure.
The first option, refurbishing, really amounted to addressing deferred maintenance on such items as the loading dock; elevators; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; green rooms, changing rooms, and storage facilities; and seat and carpeting replacement as well as fresh coats of paint applied throughout the auditorium. The second, demolish and start fresh, would not only incur the opposition of the Fisher family, for whom the hall was named, but also mobilize the active resistance of preservationist groups and implicate a bundle of regulatory strictures
and approval requirements. Moreover, a change in the structure of the building itself would upset the architectural symmetry of its relationship to the New York State Theater and to the Metropolitan Opera. Neither the Met nor the occupants of the New York State Theater, the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera, were likely to allow this option to be exercised. They liked the fact that their dwellings were of equal height and aligned with a pleasing sense of proportion around the central fountain.