Lincoln Center, Emporium of the Arts

...By lumping all the performing groups together, adding Fordham University and certain special housing, a project big enough for a proper public-relations approach was conceived...

...He had already shown that if the sponsor of a project was personally acceptable, he could construe the rather loose wording of Title I of the Urban Renewal Law to suit the sponsor's purpose...

...The former design had the appearance of a mammoth foot...

...His partner, Max Abramovitz, was selected by the Philharmonic...

...But imagine the excitement of that great crowd of taxis and people converging at curtain time...

...In the new we have a ten story high vaulted arcade...

...Such statements, however, reflect nothing more than crass commercialism...

...OF COURSE, it is difficult to evaluate what is being done at Lincoln Center...

...Do those audiences contain "potential givers...

...The path to Lincoln Center was therefore clear: its sponsorship was of the best and it presented an extraordinary opportunity for civic im...

...Paul Henry Lang of The Herald Tribune, and a few others, surely are ill-informed in their criticisms of the reduction of seating at the new Philharmonic...

...To indicate the boldness of the Opera House design, let us quote the words of the Architectural Forum: "The new exterior design is simpler, less flamboyant...

...be sharp...

...The fact that in the last twenty years there has been no master plan simply demonstrates that our people will not be coerced: New Yorkers believe in laissez faire and the planning of Lincoln Center is the proof...

...It is true that the streets around Lincoln Center will be congested...

...My purpose in writing this article, then, is to help towards a better understanding of Lincoln Center...

...This is a roster of distinguished men and yet some of our younger architects are disgruntled...

...The stage house will be twenty stories high, to house the elephants of Aida, the swan of Lohengrin, and the dragon of Siegfried...

...If these buildings were established as focal points in groupings of housing, office buildings, even non-nuisance factories spread through the city, would not the city as a whole be more interesting...

...Kolodin of The Saturday Review, Mr...

...The directors of this promotion are distinguished men: the old salt...

...In seeking to meet the expanding need for the arts, Lincoln Center is a pioneer," says a Lincoln Center fundraising brochure...

...Newbold Morris, when asked why the City Center was not included, said, "We were not invited...

...The architects and acousticians of Lincoln Center are creating in the Philharmonic Hall "a perfect musical instrument...

...Their difficulty was in finding land that they could afford, raising funds, etc...

...These men have had the vision to foster the arts by geographical con centration...

...Yet, as it turned out, it was neither an American architect nor these foreign authorities who made the crucial site-planning decision—it was Robert Moses himself...

...Not least important, other contributions would be tax-exempt...

...It has been suggested that "what is needed is a larger concert and opera hall with reduced prices" Impresarios like Sol Hurok have even said that the size of the potential audience is 5 per cent of the metropolitan area population of 600,000 people...

...But allow me for a moment to be the devil's advocate in order to indicate the absurdity of the arguments against the Center...

...No one would be so philistine as to question the importance of a dance theater...

...The Center has the charm, then, of being located by architectural hazard— not, of course, economic hazard —a method planners call "spot development" (an American invention...

...Anyone familiar with show business, however, knows that there are plenty of artists and no one would dare to suggest that we do not have great plays...

...winning design of the opera in Sydney, Australia...

...music and great fun," a tribute to and Second: Lincoln Center must be big, fulfillment of the American dream...

...It will be the kind of battle that we all love, a true test of American initiative...

...1. There is no point in having a center at all...

...The architects' planshave been "finalized...

...Critics make statements such as "the needs of the community should dictate the size of the Hall" (The Herald Tribune), or, "As for the standees, they are out in the cold perhaps...

...Finally, the biggest contribution might well turn out to be the perpetual tax-exemption of 'fourteen acres of prime, improved property: a notable gesture towards the better life by a city government plagued by financial difficulties...

...These criticisms suggest a certain petty jealousy...

...Reason: The buildings have no necessary connection with one another...

...As head of the World's Fair 1964 he has convinced the city fathersthat Lincoln Center is part of the Fair and It is curious that, in the face of such inspiring statements, the building of this huge civic project has not aroused an enthusiastic response on the part of the citizenry...

...THE PROGRESS REPORT calls some of the contiguous projects "neighbors...

...But we must not neglect the buildings and architectural scheme of the Center...

...Such men as Mr...

...The new housing at Lincoln Center was perhaps cannily planned to create a convenient audience...

...The Urban Renewal Law itself was enacted to tear down slums and build housing at rents people could afford to pay...

...It is as grand as a suburban shopping center...

...The approximately 2000 families displaced by the project were surely not concertgoers...

...That all this is done for a private denominational college, shows the basic concern for education in New York City...

...For a big job like this you need a top organizer and Wallace Harrison was the inevitable choice...

...Fordham University wanted a downtown branch...

...Consider the comparatively small scale of the Doge's Palace in Venice or the Baptistry at Pisa where the arcades are only a single story high...

...Would it not, in some cases, bring interest to an otherwise quiet neighborhood, or an evening excitement to a district busy only in the daytime...

...First, the City Planning aspects of the project...

...Here will be found fourteen whole acres of culture, practically under one roof...

...Young men who might otherwise be wasting their time competing against each other, instead, collaborate with the efficiency of an auto assembly line...

...If only the walls were of glass...

...Norman Cousins and Mr...

...It can be one means of helping to meet a paramount need of our time: the need of modern man for creative fulfillment—his striving for self-expression and the emotional and aesthetic satisfactions that set him above the animal...

...3. The planning of Lincoln Center is insular: it takes no account of the city plan...

...Here, then, is a building bold in scale...

...Would the work be less competent than what is being done...

...4. Lincoln Center will include the Met, the Philharmonic, a repertory and dance theater, a library, a museum, a bandshell, Fordham and Juilliard: nine buildings or groups which are each potentially interesting...

...In spite of the fact that a professional survey showed "as many peopleknow about Lincoln Center as know about the pyramids," money is still shortand citizens still inert...

...The Philharmonic Building stands roughed out on its siteand it, as well as a building for Fordham, blend perfectly into the existing streetscene of automobile showrooms and old hotels...

...The only shortage lies in jobs...

...But our buildings will also not have the gross defect of being novel...

...We grant that the City Center has consistently large audiences, good programs and popular prices, despite the fact that it "plays in a warehouse so ugly and unsatisfactory from every point of view that no self-respecting community one-tenth the size of New York would put up with it" (Paul Henry Lang...

...There would be a partnership between an organization trained in big enterprise which would make the decisions and spend the money, and the public, the ideal partner, not only silent but unaware...

...In 1940, the City Planning Commission stated, "A Master Plan can only be conceived and developed by first striving for the most comprehensive view and clearest understanding of a Master Plan by the citizens . . . It can be as good and effective as they make it...

...The President of the United States, at the ground-breaking ceremony, said of Lincoln Center, "Here will develop a mighty influence for Peace and Understanding...

...According to the Lincoln Center Public Relations Office no one will be left out in the cold: "The Buildings are designed to facilitate broadcasting...

...This article was written about a yearago...

...III, President of the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts, says, "Lincoln Center is a story in the American tradition of voluntary private initiative and of what it means in service to- the public...

...WHY, THEN, have most New Yorkers been so apathetic to this project...

...For example, Mr...

...For every person who attends the performances, thousands will see and hear them in living rooms across the country...

...Unlike ew York University, which had to acquire its campus at private developers' prices, block by block and sometimes house by house, Fordham has been given a campus at a bargain price by the government, with an adjacent public park kept up at city expense, and a group of plazas and gathering places kept up by Lincoln Center...

...Fortunately, this idea was discarded because of the expense...

...Even enlightened people are strangely apathetic...

...Such a method may not lead to buildings quite so original as those of Le Corbusier, Nervi, or Candela, and our opera house may not have the striking quality of the competition...

...only minds that have been molded by great organizations can appreciate works of this sort...

...2. Gigantism is a disease: fourteen acres stuffed with "culture" is a syndrome...

...He was the main architect for the UN Complex and the Socony building, had been the consulting architect for The Metropolitan Opera Company and is the architect for the new opera house...

...MOST OF THE OBJECTIONS urged against Lincoln Center have already been answered...

...Third: the public idea of "creative fulfillment" means the usual Our response to such remarks must great American norm, but more so...

...The task ahead [raising money] can be accomplished only with the interest, understanding and cooperation of all the segments of our society who have a stake in Lincoln Center—Government, business, labor, philanthropy and above all, the individual American citizen...

...We may rest assured, however, of the cali ber of the teams...

...But are those audiences of the quality that Lincoln Center is trying to attract...

...Moses, in his capacity as Park Commissioner, decided that there had been enough shillyshallying...

...5. Supposing each one of these nine projects had designs selected through a public competition...

...their designs will be tried and true...

...The park," he said, and pointed with his pencil, "will be there...

...Contrast this with the old-world city planning idea of dispersing public buildings as points of interest in neutral surroundings...

...They complain that just one hundred years ago, when the Paris Opera construction was started, it was designed by a then unknown architect, Charles Gamier, and that he (under a monarchy) won this job through a public competition...

...Some 11,000 people will be fighting to get to their seats at 2:30 or at 8:40...

...Some things have changed—the General is no longer the President of ourcountry, the Park Commissioner is nolonger Park Commissioner nor is he SlumClearance Chairman, yet just as influential withal...

...The Metropolitan Opera and the Philharmonic wanted new buildings...

...when it is for a project obviously in the public interest...

...the surrounding streets and avenues cannot be redesigned to handle the traffic...

...the new Philharmonic is dedicated to quality...

...What has been shown publicly is rather sketchy, though the Hugh Ferriss sketches are wonderfully nostalgic of the Chicago 1934 World's Fair...

...Furthermore, it is apparently necessary to explain the essential correctness of using public funds without consulting the public or their elected representatives—even so gotten the Center a substantial moneygift by this feat...

...In the site planning, the architects (of whom we shall speak later) turned for advice to other, less well-organized men, notably Alvar Aalto of Finland and Sven Markelius of Sweden...

...By way of an answer, let us discuss the development of Lincoln Center...

...And perhaps intellectuals cannot appreciate the simple principle that if one thing is good, then ten of them is ten times as good...

...Not only could there be a substantial contribution through the Title I land grant, but "grants-in-aid" could be secured for such appurtenances as plazas and parking garages...

...provement and "long-term investment at modest profit...

...First: every society gets the Lincoln Center will be all of these kind of architecture it deserves, and and in addition "great theater, great Lincoln Center when built will be expressive of our moment in history...

...Then, cooled in the air-conditioned halls, 11,000 people will relax in comfort and plan the strategy of getting home...

...Section 197 of The New York City Charter instructed the City Planning Commission to prepare a master plan...

...I owe this title to Jacques Barzun(Columbia University Forum, Winter 1960...

...Juilliard needed a new campus...

...briefly stated, slums were to be bought and sold to private developers at marked-down prices...

...there was something inartistic and untidy about people breathing hard as they crowded around the back and sides of an otherwise majestic auditorium" (The Saturday Review...

...They include a vice-president of Abraham & Straus, a director of Union Carbide, the former president of General Foods, the president of Steuben Glass, the chairman of Cuban-American Sugar, the rector of Fordham University, a former chairman of U.S...

...These include Fordham, Princess Gardens (420 "middle income" cooperative apartments at $900.00 down plus $30.00 a room), and 4200 "Luxury" apartments sponsored by Webb and Knapp...

...Moses had brilliantly interpreted this law to allow the building of such a monument as the Coliseum Exhibition Hall and Office Building, whose architecture forms an ideal background for the National Hardware Show and similar spectacles...

...But these youngsters do not realize that instead of employing the wasteful method of public competition used in less organized countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, Israel, and England, we have the largest and busiest firms do the work...

...LET US FIRST CONSIDER how the conception of Lincoln Center arose...

...Another critic suggests that it might be better to develop a repertory group of significance before building a special repertory theater, that it is more important to have dancers of artistic merit than a dance theater...

...Why should he struggle through the subway crush only to suffer the feeling of inferiority common to those who peer dizzily down from the uppermost balcony at the glittering tiers below...

...Lincoln Center, as planned, has the benefits of centralization...

...Indeed, despite the fact that individual American citizens are making a substantial money contribution to Lincoln Center, there is a general belief that the project is a private enterprise like Woolworth's or the A & P. Perhaps Lincoln Center is an idea that average people cannot grasp: it is too big and new...

...In this country even the poorest citizen has his television set, and certainly he is better off at home in a comfortable armchair...

...It would not be big...

...The architects, at one period in the designing, seem to have felt that this was a fault, for they proposed an enclosing arcade, to create as they said, its own environment...

...Robert Moses, in his capacity as Chairman of the Slum Clearance Committee, had the modus operandi...

...Would it not be of advantage to have eight or nine plazas each with its own character, each located to avoid congesting the streets...

...The whole thing would lose its impact...

...No one could deny that a repertory theater was desirable in principle...

...The design of the other buildings was entrusted to some of our most prominent architects: Philip Johnson, Pietro Belluschi, Eero Saarinen, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Walker, Foley, Smith & Smith...

...Steel, and John D. Rockefeller III...

...Aren't the chances good that for anything less than a hundred milestablished architects, under the lion dollar deal isn't worth the trouble spur of competition, or perhaps of the great financial and civic leaders some totally unknown young who are backing "this great cultural men, would produce designs of adventure" (to again quote our Presieven greater merit...

...Fordham University, with 9000 students, will add to the importance of the area...

...Let LaScala in Milan or the Opera in Paris have their piccionaia, their paradis, their peanut gallery...