Publications / Texas Architect

Texas Architect   :   TSA Handbook   :   Texas' Best Places   :   The Shape of Texas   :     CheckSet   :   TSA Annual Report   :   TSA Strategic Plan   :   Submittals   :   Back Issues

PROJECT The Long Center for the Performing Arts, Austin
CLIENT The Long Center for the Performing Arts
ARCHITECT Nelsen Partners in association with Zeidler Partnership
DESIGN TEAM Stan Haas, FAIA; Michael Smith; Michael Guarino; Dan Gruber; Gino DeSantis, AIA; Gabriel Jaroslavsky; John Baccari, AIA
CONTRACTOR Austin Commercial
CONSULTANTS Architectural Engineers Collaborative (structural); Austech Roofing Consultants (roofing); Boyce Nemec Designs (projection/ video); Bruce Dunlop Lighting Design (lighting); William Caruso & Associates (food service); Development Associates (accessibility/life safety); Fischer Dachs Associates (theater); Garcia Design (landscape); Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies (door hardware); Sign Elements formerly Intellicam (signage/wayfi nding); JaffeHolden (acoustics and audio); Kroll Schiff & Associates (security); LOC Consultants (civil); Peter M. Muller (curtainwall); Ryno Glass (panel artist); TLC Engineering for Architecture (MEPFP/telecommuniations)
PHOTOGRAPHER Dan Gruber

In its metamorphosis from the “turtle shell”-domed Lester E. Palmer Auditorium, the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Artshad several false starts over the course of two decades. The project’s protracted gestation has ultimately yielded a more stripped-down facility than that suggested during its early stages, however, the new structure respectfully acknowledges its iconic forebear while doing more with less.

Palmer Auditorium, a multi-venue facility originally called Municipal Auditorium, became a distinctive fixture on the Austin cityscape upon completion in 1959, its low profile set atop a hillside along the south shoreline of Town Lake and offering unobstructed views of downtown. Longtime Austinites and former UT students still recall attending concerts and car shows at Palmer, and hundreds of architectural interns filed into its vast interior to take their professional exams. One of them was Stan Haas, who eventually was entrusted to renovate Palmer after voters approved a referendum in 1998 that led to the creation of the Long Center.

As early as 1993, Haas advocated the adaptive re-use of Palmer Auditorium, which by that time was losing out to newer venues around the city that could better facilitate music concerts, product expositions, and other special events. Despite the competition, local performing arts organizations were unable to schedule their full seasons elsewhere in town.

In response, Haas, then the founding principal of TeamHaas Architects, produced a pro bono series of drawings and models for a project that was expected to cost $50 million. His efforts led to a decision by the nonprofit Arts Center Stage, the catalyst behind the re-imagining of the municipal property, to hire Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for the job with TeamHaas serving as associate architect. Attempting to meet the diverse needs of myriad stakeholders, SOM envisioned a 288,000-sf makeover estimated to cost $125 million. At that time, with the local economy struggling, the daunting prospect of a nine-figure capital campaign forced the client to reassess the scope of the project. Then, in 2004, the nonprofit accepted a Haas-designed and master planned 180,000-sf building with a price tag of $77 million. Where SOM included four performance venues, Haas planned for two in the initial phase and two to be added at a later date. Haas (whose firm by that time had been acquired by Nelsen Partners) teamed with Zeidler Partnership of West Palm Beach, Fla., as architect of record for the project.

The Long Center’s signature parti is the re-used dome support structure that now carries the remnants of the auditorium’s cornice ring. Nighttime uplighting creates a prominent “halo” that Haas maintains is more the result of serendipity than deliberate design: “It was just common sense to keep it,” he says. Supported by an arcing 30-foot-tall colonnade, the curvilinear folly defines the 30,000-sf, semi-circular City Terrace and frames a panoramic view of downtown while providing a spacious open-air venue. This 290-foot-diamater “halo” is indeed a dramatic gesture and is the most visible example of the old auditorium’s “good bones.” Unlike the first two venues that fit inside old Palmer, two expansion venues – a recital hall/education building and the Topfer Theater – will be wings flanking Dell Hall aligned south of City Terrace.

More than just retaining the old building’s encircling cornice and colonnade, Haas’ team displayed a creative resourcefulness in re-using much of the 1959 structure (designed by two Austin firms, Jessen Jessen Millhouse Greeven & Crume and Page Southerland Page). While many of the project’s recycling strategies and energy-efficient features would qualify the makeover for sustainability certification, Haas says LEED was not pursued because of the tight budget. Still, the recycling of 65 percent of the materials from Palmer is impressive and includes: 97 percent of the 22,000 tons of demolition debris; 500 tons of steel for the new building; re-use of the original foundation, basement, and stagehouse; metal roof tiles from the dome became exterior and interior siding; curtainwall glass fashioned into donor wall plaques; Italian marble toilet partitions retrofitted as lavatory countertops; the auditorium’s ’50s-style suspended light fixtures repositioned in the lobby of its smaller theater; and the compression ring from the dome’s structure was embedded in the lawn at the front of the City Terrace with uplighting added to create a disco dancefloor-like outdoor feature.

One of the selective demolition tasks involved removing the Palmer’s stage platform and its infrastructure to capture the original basement level while keeping the existing stagehouse’s exterior walls. This adroit peeling away effectively created a more open acoustic volume for the Michael & Susan Dell Hall, the larger of the Long Center’s two performance venues. It also provided patrons with more generous sight lines when combined with its new sloped seating configuration. While the 2,400-seat Dell Hall benefits from a larger stage aperture, acoustician Mark Holden of JaffeHolden says that its most acoustically innovative features are the acoustically “transparent” balconies designed with louvers that eliminate the “dead zones” of most large halls. Dell Hall’s traditional seating arrangement includes side-box seating and balconies to reduce the number of surfaces that would otherwise echo. According to Holden, the team succeeded in “making the large space sound like a room with people instead of a vacuum.”

The smaller of the two venues is the Debra and Kevin Rollins Studio Theatre that will be used by regional artists and community arts groups. It will also be used for film screening and corporate meetings. The “black box” theater is a flexible space that can accommodate between 80 and 226 depending on its seating arrangement. While the Dell is where the Austin Lyric Opera, the Austin Symphony Orchestra, and Ballet Austin will present most of their work, they also will occasionally use the Rollins.

The Long Center, the final major piece of the City of Austin’s Lady Bird Lake Park Master Plan, complements the adjacent public facilities—the new Palmer Events Center (for product exhibitions), Auditorium Shores (for outdoor concerts), the Dougherty Arts Center (for arts classes and mini-theater), as well as the above-ground parking structure that serves them all with space for 1,200 cars on four levels. Clearly the crown jewel of the 54-acre urban campus, the Long Center celebrates the legacy of its predecessor but also offers new generations of Austinites a place to create their own memorable moments.

--TA contributing editor, Lawrence Connolly, AIA, is principal of Connolly Architects in Austin.