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Despite Costs, Showstopper Concert Halls Have an Enduring Allure

Apr 04, 2024Apr 04, 2024

A worker atop the roof of the Sydney Opera House in 2020. After a lengthy refurbishment, the iconic building celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Photographer: David Gray/AFP via Getty Images

Venues for orchestral performance often boast thrilling designs and troubled development processes. Here’s why these spaces can be so difficult — and rewarding — to create.

A new home for the New York Philharmonic opened in 1962, an optimistic, modern design intended to invite a music-hungry middle class (enamored with its charismatic and TV-friendly music director, Leonard Bernstein) and reinforce the city as a capital of culture.

Designed by Max Abramovitz as a cage of glass wrapped in tapering white travertine columns, it was the vanguard venue of the massive new Lincoln Center arts complex.