Amidst finishing the second installation of the High Line with James Corner Field Operations, and beginning to design the Broad Museum in downtown Los Angeles, DS + R has carved out a little pocket of time to add the finishing touches to their redesign of Lincoln Center. According to the Times, the team has turned their attention to the smaller details of project, specifically the Center’s electronic infoscape. It takes a lot to stop a New Yorker, yet Reynold Levy, Lincoln Center’s president, told the Times, “We think this will cause them to stop in their tracks and really take a look. We are endeavoring to create a feeling, engender a mood, provide a sense of the drama and the beauty of what goes on in our halls. We want to attract passers-by, but we also want to surprise Upper West Siders.”
More about the new infoscape after the break.
Comprised of LEDs, the electronic surface will feature scrolling text on the north side West 65th Street in addition to 13 new vertical 4-by-8-foot L.E.D. screens on the south side of West 65th. These vertical screens, dubbed “blades”, are intended to “enliven the street and convey the vitality and accessibility of the center” with short video sequences and different images, including backstage footage.
The elements break the scale of the building down to “a pedestrian scale”, allowing passersby to connect with the building in a different way from snatching a quick glimpse of the exterior. Levy told the Times, “In a way Diller Scofidio & Renfro is a metaphor for what Lincoln Center tries to do with its performing artists. Sometimes they’re discovered brand new, sometimes they’re promising but not wholly proven.”
