Design
The structure was designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, and Jo Mielziner was responsible for the design of the stage and interior. The travertine-clad roof houses stacks of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, designed by Gordon Bunshaft.
The Vivian Beaumont differs from traditional Broadway theatres because of its use of stadium seating and its thrust stage configuration. With 1,060 seats, it is considered a fairly large theater for dramatic plays and a medium-size theater for musicals.
Located on the Vivian Beaumont’s planted green roof, the Claire Tow Theater seats just 112 people in a fixed configuration. Designed by Hugh Hardy and built at a cost of $42 million, the two-story, 23,000-square-foot glass box has the same width as the glass base of the Beaumont and also houses rehearsal space, dressing quarters, offices, and a pocket lobby with a bar. The structure is wrapped inside a grille of aluminum louvers that help screen out the sun. In designing the interior, Hardy used simple materials, stained oak for the lobby floors and walnut for the theater’s sloping walls. The bar features Overture (2012), a sculpture by Kiki Smith.
Read more about this topic: Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either—and not polished!
Let it be weathered—like a farm wagon—”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)