Lincoln Center Inside Out / Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Written by Diego Hernández
Published on April 16, 2013

The redesign of Lincoln Center is one of the most challenging and innovative civic projects in recent urban history. Over the past eight years, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), in close collaboration with FXFOWLE, Beyer Blinder Belle and Lincoln Center’s leadership, has transformed the 50-year-old modernist citadel into a porous and democratic campus. This visually rich document is the first comprehensive book to feature the extensive redevelopment in its entirety. Inside-Out, and still Lincoln Center details DS+R’s interpretation of the modernist project after several generations of social and political change. Through a combination of photographs, drawings, renderings, archival records and texts, the book describes the innovative strategies that have dissolved the public/private divide and effectively turned the campus inside-out, extending the spectacle of the performance halls into the Center’s mute public spaces and surrounding streets.

Conceived as a cross between an art book, a scholarly record and an architectural diary, this publication demonstrates how the recent redesign both respects and challenges preconceived notions about Lincoln Center and its ongoing role as a cultural hub in an ever-changing city.

This unorthodox publication is comprised entirely of gatefolds; a series of inside-out centerfolds where the exterior pages of each spread feature large-format photographs highlighting different parts of the campus. New imagery has been produced for this publication by the acclaimed architectural photographer Iwan Baan and newcomer, Matthew Monteith, as well as by other photographers. Inside the gatefolds, tucked behind these lush photos, is a series of “back stories” that reveal the surprising evolution and unexpected afterlife of the same spaces. The book can therefore be read in two ways—as a photo essay that leads readers on a visual tour of the campus, or as a series of intricate short stories narrated through rich and experimental ephemera that allows readers to explore the many projects within a project.