Call it “a generational and stylistic dance between Frank Gehry and Maya Lin.” Gideon Lester, artistic director of the Gary-Designed Fisher-His Center at his College Bard, mentioned the next neighbor. The Lynn-designed building provides studios for the Center’s dance, theater, opera and orchestral performances.
The yet-to-be-named 25,000-square-foot building, which will cost $42 million, is expected to break ground next fall, the university said Tuesday.
“We are really at a loss,” Lester said in an interview. It’s also the home of .We use every space in the building all the time.”
Beyond the need for more space, Bard also wants to double down on its growing cultural excellence far from the Hudson Valley campus. This is due in no small part to Fischer’s central role as an incubator for new shows. Among its successes is Pam Tannowitz’s “Four Quartet,” which New York Times critic Alastair Macaulay hailed in 2018 as “dance her theater’s best creation of the century.” .
Lynn said her new building, which she co-designed with Bialosky and Partners, was designed in collaboration with theater and acoustic engineering consultant Charcoalblue. It is intended to provide both outdoor and outdoor rehearsal spaces.
The turf roof emerges from the ground in a sloping semicircle, creating a natural amphitheater on one side, allowing for performances, and providing floor-to-ceiling studio windows on the other. It aims to create a structure that complements Gehry’s adjacent signature handiwork while gently integrating the building into the surrounding meadows, but never draws attention to it.
“It was dancing,” Lynn agreed, a balancing act she learned as a student of Gehry’s at Yale University in the 1980s. “He’s the only one who said, ‘Don’t worry about deciding between art or architecture. He just keeps doing what he’s doing.'”