OMA- DEE-AND-CHARLES-WYLY-THEATER

DEE AND CHARLES WYLY THEATER, USA, DALLAS, 2009

Theater situated in the new Dallas Performing Arts Center


In the typical theater, the proliferation of front-of-house and back-of-house spaces threatens to strangle the auditorium itself, buffering the performance from the outside world. The compact, vertical orientation of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, with its 12 storeys, allows support spaces to be stacked above and beneath the auditorium rather than wrapped around it. more..
No longer shielded by transitional and technical areas – foyer, ticket counters, backstage facilities – this reimagining of the theatre typology exposes the auditorium to the city on all sides. On alternate nights, the Dallas Theatre Center, for whom the Wyly will be a new home, can perform Shakespeare in a hermetic container, or – opening the blackout blinds along the exterior glass walls – with the city of Dallas as a backdrop the next. The tallness and simplicity of the box form, together with the unique visibility of the activities in the theatre, gives the building prominence in the large new complex of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. The form also facilitates innovation in the theatre's mechanics: the conventional fly tower above the stage has been extended vertically (with program concentrated around it on multiple levels), and can pull up both scenery and seating. This allows artistic directors to rapidly change the venue into a wide array of configurations that push the limits of the 'multi-form' theatre: proscenium, thrust, traverse, arena, studio, and flat floor – in which the seating, and the balconies, can be removed entirely. The stage and the floor of the auditorium are deliberately made of non-precious materials – the floor can be drilled, nailed into, and painted at will. In this way, together with the easily manipulable seating and stage configuration, the Wyly Theatre seeks to preserve and elaborate the flexible, improvisatory nature of the Dallas Theatre Center's original home. Live webcam view of The Wyly


FACT SHEET Status: Completion: October 2009 Site: Dallas Arts District, Downtown Dallas, Texas USA Client: Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Program: 7,700m2 multi-form theatre with flexible performance configurations (proscenium, thrust, traverse, arena, and flat floor), a nominal seating capacity of 575, and full front-of-house and back-of-house facilities including administrative offices, rehearsal spaces, café, gift shop, cocktail bar, offices, costume shop, lobby, auditorium, stage support areas, mechanical rooms, production spaces and rooftop multipurpose space. COLLABORATORS Acoustics: DHV – Renz van Luxemburg, Ben Kok, Theo Raijmakers Accessibility: McGuire Associates – Kevin McGuire Constructability: McCarthy Construction – Gary Akin, Wayne Hendricks Cost: Donnell Consultants Inc. – Stewart Donnell, Athol Joffe, Steve Ryan Donnell Consultants Inc. Stewart Donnell, Athol Joffe, Steve Ryan Executive Architect: Kendall / Heaton Associates – Rex Wooldridge, Pat Ankney, Vince Nguyen, Matt Upchurch Enclosure: Front, Inc. – Marc Simmons, Brian Guerrero Furniture: Quinze & Milan – Arne Quinze, Tom DeGres, Alain Gilles Graphics: 2x4 – Michael Rock, Albert Lee Life Safety: Pielow Fair Associates - Bob Pielow Lighting: Tillotson Design Associates – Suzan Tillotson, Christopher Cheap Mechanical: Transsolar / Cosentini / Plus Group – Stefan Holst, Igor Bienstock, Mark Malekshahi, Peter Lee Structure: Magnusson Klemencic Associates – Jay Taylor, Owen Kohashi, Lavina Sadhwani Theatre: Theatre Projects Consultants – John Coyne, Benton Delinger, John Runia, David Taylor Vertical Circulation: HKA – Daryl Anderson PRESS Architecture Week, 27 October 2010 Dallas News, 11 October 2010 Financial Times, 23 October 2009 TIME Magazine, 22 October 2009 New York Times, 15 October 2009 Los Angeles Times, 7 October 2009 Dallas News, 31 August 2009 Dallas News, 16 August 2009 Kera, 25 February 2009 Designscene, 16 February 2009 a+u, #427 April 2006 Time, 13 February 2006 Construction, January 2006 Arcspace, 10 November 2005 AV Proyectos #10, 2005 Architectuur, 10 November 2005 Fast Company, June 2005 Archined, 17 June 2004 Dallas Morning News, 13 June 2004 CREDITS Architects: REX/OMA Principals: Joshua Prince-Ramus (partner in charge) and Rem Koolhaas Project architects: Erez Ella, Vincent Bandy, Tim Archambault, Vanessa Kassabian Team: Haviland Argo, Steve Chen, Dan Choi, Robert Donnelly, Selva Gurdogan, Jonathan Handel, Stine Hansen, Oke Hauser, Andrew Heid, Nahyun Hwang, Ashley Klein, Trine Kobbelvedt, Natalia Ibanez Lario, Soren Sigurd Larsen, Mads Kristensen, Filip Rem, Beatriz Ramo, Gro Sarauw, Max Schwitalla, Rooshad Shroff, Gregers Tang Thomsen, Lisa Tiedje, Angelica Trevino, Kristine Wander, Monika Wittig, Dolly Yarur CLIENT STATEMENT "The creation of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts is an investment in the cultural life of our city... Together with the Performance Park, the Center will become an exciting, seven-day-a-week destination that will animate Dallas and the region. This new Center ensures that future generations in Dallas and the region will have access to the best music, theatre, opera and dance from throughout the world." –Bill Lively, President and CEO of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts.