LONG CENTER

Recycling Palmer into new arts center

At the new arts center, more than the tiles are green. Almost all of the old venue became part of the new one

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER
Friday, February 29, 2008

It's simply like no other new building around.

Though the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts may be Austin's newest architectural landmark, the $77 million two-venue complex more than acknowledges the building that came before it, the 1959 Palmer Auditorium. It actually uses parts of the Palmer.

Many parts.

Think those green and brown metal tiles that clad the squared-off top of the Long Center look familiar? Those are the original painted aluminium tiles that crowned the Palmer's dome, prompting some to refer to the civic auditorium as a "turtle." Now, the tiles have been re-sized and — hail dents and all — reassembled in the same pattern on the exterior and the interior. Tiles line portions of the lobbies and the inside elevator walls.

And does that dramatic circular ring beam that thrusts out as if trying to lasso Lady Bird Lake give you a sense of déjà vu all over again?

That's the ring beam that supported the Palmer's distinctive dome.

The original foundation, basement and soaring stagehouse that's nearly nine stories tall — they've also been re-used.

Call it the re-imagining of an Austin icon.

Architect Stan Haas says it's really just common sense.

"It's about creating more with less," he says. "It's a demonstration in what we've come to call common sense sustainability."

Haas, who was born in 1950 in Temple, says he has always had an affinity for the mid-century mid-American modern style of the original Palmer building. In 1995, just as community arts leaders were organizing to campaign for a municipal performing arts center, Haas created a series of models and drawings — pro-bono — to introduce people to the idea of re-using much of the 1950s civic auditorium. "Really, I just wanted to generate interest in the whole idea of re-using the Palmer," he says. After all, the building, "had great bones to begin with."

The idea stuck, somewhat. In 2001, when the project's price tag rose to an ambitious $125.1 million for a 288,000-square-foot, four-venue complex that would be designed by famed international architects Skidmore Owings & Merrill, the designers first proposed saving much of the original dome. They later proposed replacing the dome altogether though still preserving the general circular thrust of the building. But after the dot-com bubble burst and fundraising stalled, Long Center backers scaled the project back and instead aimed for a $77 million two-venue 180,000-square-foot plan to match the realities of Austin's philanthropic landscape. Haas, whose firm TeamHaas had since merged with Nelsen Partners Architects, was named project architect.

The new leaner budget — construction costs of just under $47 million meant a thrifty $278 per square foot — demanded a much-revised design that was all about cost-efficiency.

Haas credits the uncovering of an historic black-and-white photograph from the Palmer's original construction process at Austin History Center as the "light-bulb moment" that led to the design. The grainy photograph shows the very first of the steel dome ribs installed. But the structure that really stands out? The zoomy concrete dome support beam. The beam veritably disappeared when the building was completed. But exposed, Haas liked its distinctiveness and originality.

Now, the beam defines and embraces the 30,000-square-foot City Terrace, framing sweeping views of downtown Austin. "(The ring beam) is the kind of unique architectural feature that you would never add to a totally new project," Haas says. "It says everything about what the Long Center is now and what Palmer was in its time."

So did the green tiles. And the stage house. And a lot more.

Haas and his team found ways to reuse 65 percent of the materials from the original Palmer in the new structure. And of the total 44 million pounds of debris — steel, concrete, dirt, glass — that resulted from the demolition of the old building, 97.6 percent was reused either at the Long Center or elsewhere, instead of clogging up a landfill. Adding a huge savings to the construction budget, more than 500 tons of steel — an increasingly expensive building material — from Palmer was recycled for use in the new building.

Most obviously reused are the dome roof tiles. But Haas and his team found more worth saving. Glass from Palmer's exterior curtain wall was recycled to craft the outside panels that list the Long Center's major donors. Philippine mahogany panels from Palmer's offices were salvaged to line the AT&T Education Room, a reception and meeting space. And that luscious black-and-white marble that rings the bathroom sinks? That's from the Palmer's bathroom partitions — a type of Italian black-and-white marble from a quarry that has been long tapped out. Other eco-friendly materials include the carpet tile used in the lobbies; the rubber backing is made from recycled tires.

Reusing the stagehouse — the towering brick structure that houses the stage and backstage areas, one of the largest stagehouses in Texas — meant fitting the Long Center's main venue, the Michael and Susan Dell Hall, neatly into the ring. The smaller Debra and Kevin Rollins Studio Theater — a flexible space that can accommodate a number of different stage arrangements and seating configurations from 80 to 240 people — also sits within the Palmer's original footprint.

(Future plans include the construction of two other spaces — the Topfer Family Theatre and a recital and education building — as wings to the current structure. Both were part of the original Long Center plan.)

An interior color palette that includes sage greens and dusty blues, soft gray hand-finished Venetian plaster and warm cherrywood paneling was selected to allude to the Central Texas natural landscape.

Inside Dell Hall, the challenge of creating an acoustically smart environment was a collaboration between Haas' team and a host of specialists: acoustician Mark Holden of Jaffe Holden and Associates, theater consultant Joshua Dachs of Fischer Dachs Assocates and Zelder Partnership Architects, who specialize in theater design.

"The challenge is to make a space this large sound like you're in a real room, in a space with other people, not in a sound vacuum," Holden says. "Ideally, the sound should be both clear and warm at the same time. And also immersive and immediate."

Holden says that probably the most innovative feature in the Dell Hall are the "transparent" balconies that, through a system of louvers, allow sound to pass through the balconies eliminating the acoustic dead zones found in the back of many large halls. The floor of the original Palmer stage, around which Dell Hall is built, was lowered about 10 feet into the former basement to open up the hall's "throat," creating a more open acoustic volume. The general curved shape of the hall — a traditional theater arrangement with side box seating and balconies — means sound is gently guided around the venue and not given too many flat surfaces to echo off. Cantilevering the balconies also allows for more unobstructed interior spaces. Grillwork in the walls further opens the space allowing sound to resonate.

The hall has to accommodate a range of performances — symphony, opera and ballet, yes, but also live bands, Broadway-style musicals and solo musical acts. Hence, there's a custom-crafted cherrywood flexible orchestral shell that deflects sound that will serve as a backdrop for the symphony or other acoustic ensembles. ("By far the symphony makes the most demands acoustically," Holden says.) And when there's an amplified event like a rock 'n' roll band, acoustical fabric banners can be deployed along the uppers walls to soften the sound.

And what happens if that rock 'n' roll band is blasting away across the street on Auditorium Shores? No worries. Dell Hall is acoustically sealed to prevent outside sound from infiltrating or inside sound from spreading to the rest of the building.

Holden and his associates — who also are working on the renovation of the University of Texas' Bass Concert Hall as well as numerous other projects in Texas — spent several weeks in February "tuning" Dell Hall during sound-check sessions with the symphony, a choral group, a woodwind ensemble and an amplified band.

Holden's favorite seat in the house? "The first five rows of the mezzanine," he says. "Really, some of the best sounding seats are in the mezzanine and balcony and how great is that for everyone who wants to come here and can't afford the expensive seats?"

Haas, too, looks forward to the way the Long Center will welcome the public.

"It's about creating a sense of place," Haas says. "For a new building to instantly have a sense of place is very challenging. But the Long Center will open with its history in place right from the beginning."

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699

About the bathrooms

The Long Center was designed with 'potty parity' in mind, to help with long lines at women's restrooms often seen at other venues during intermissions. The center features a total of 14 public restrooms, including two family restrooms. There are 68 commodes in the women's restrooms; the men's restrooms feature 18 urinals and 17 commodes.