Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Dallas and it's Architecture

­I recently had the opportunity to attend a lighting conference in Dallas, TX hosted by LBL Lighting. It was a great experience to explore lighting and innovative products, but also to feed the creative spirit! For me, it’s been almost ten years since I had traveled to the Dallas / Fort Worth region. The first time I ventured to the area I was enthralled by the architecture which I had studied as a student of design. The iconic architecture of  Kahn and IM Pei were high on my priority list of projects to visit. On this trip, I was guided through the downtown matrix of Dallas by a tour guide, who highlighted the recent architecture that has been featured in numerous national and international publications. It was a inspiring 24 hours for an architect! Ironically, JL Architects work on a weekly basis with consultants, and clients that call this city home! They are within miles of many inspirational buildings of the modern architectural era.


Winspear Opera House from the Wyly Theater

Amazingly there are many Pritzker Prize winning architects that have built master pieces in Dallas / Fort Worth. Some of these include: The Modern Arts Museum by Tadao Ando; Margaret Hill Bridge by Santiago Caltrava; The Perot Museum of Nature & Science by Thom Mayne / Morphosis. But the projects we had the opportunity to explore are in the Arts district of downtown Dallas. 

We had the opportunity to step inside of a few, and appreciate the planning that it takes to create a building, or space that even the non-architecturally trained visitor appreciates.


Under the Canopy at the Winspear

One of our first stops was the Winspear Opera House by Norman Foster + Partners. The building not only houses a state of the art acoustics for opera, but it also serves as a public park. The auditorium seats over 2,000 with  a multimillion dollar chandelier in the main auditorium which changes shape and color according the season or show for patrons to admire. On the exterior of the building a large canopy provides refuge from the heat & sun. The shade invites visitors to enjoy activities, such as water features and ping pong that attract all ages.


Chandelier at the Winspear


We then meandered across the street to a much more functionally driven theater, Wyly Theater by Rem Koolhas. The building was specifically designed for the art and drama of performance, but reinvented as a vertical platform. There are numerous articles about this space, and the exterior emphasizes the design intent of the project. During the tour, we sat in the theater for about 30 minutes while the docent described the impressive multitude of decisions that cultivated such an innovative performance space.



 I highly recommend that if you are in the area you take a tour of the Dallas Design District because these are only two of the many MUST SEE spaces in the area. If you need more incentive to go to visit Dallas, then read about the area from another architect’s perspective.


http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/an-architectural-tour-the-dallas-arts-district/


- Sharlee K. Van Tine, LEED AP

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