Then and Now

In the early 2010s, the editors of the Lincoln Center Theater Review sat down with the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE to discuss the original conception of Lincoln Center, as well as the ideas for renovating the complex that has now become a vital cultural institution.

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EDITORS: You were the architecture critic at The New York Times when Lincoln Center opened. How did you write about it then?

ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE: We all reviewed it, and we all disliked it. In fact, I remember that when the Opera opened every one of these critics went— music, architecture, art—and we all wrote these scathing pieces, and the memo that came down from Punch Sulzberger at the time was: “Couldn’t any of you have liked anything?” Well, we were right and we were wrong. There was a lot to like, but we were also creatures of our time. Certainly, I was thinking of the architecture at the time, which I admired, and I thought this was compromised. But it wasn’t, really.

ED: Compromised by what?

ALH: By the states of the groups that were sponsoring it. They didn’t want anything too brutal, too off-putting. And modern architecture had a very tough look then. So it was softened, and I think agreeably so, and probably properly so.

ED: What did you like about it?

ALH: Well, I loved the open space. I loved the plaza. I liked the Beaumont. To someone who was a modernist, the Beaumont was a very good, modern building. It still, I think, has lovely things about it. And we felt that it was not compromised as the others were.

ED: What was the thinking behind Lincoln Center and, for that matter, the Los Angeles Music Center, the South Bank in London?

ALH: First of all, it was a car-centric culture. The idea was that you should be able to drive to a center that combined all of these cultural forms and performances. Lincoln Center was done in a very monumental style, which was largely called brutalism, but it was not like the London buildings, which were pure, unadulterated brutalism. They [the Lincoln Center buildings] were sort of what I’d call soft modernism. They were more pleasing. They were watered down a bit.

ED: Were they compromises?

ALH: They were compromises, and we all objected, but we’ve all gotten to love them, including the architects Diller Scofidio+Renfro, who are renovating Lincoln Center. They are very aware of the history and felt, as I do now, that this was a very legitimate way to build, in terms of the philosophy and the beliefs of the time. In fact, they’re working to save the architecture and do the things that need to be done to bring it all into the twenty-first century. What we’re critical of is the way these buildings were built, as temples on podiums that removed them from the city. You drove in by car. You came underneath. The whole idea of what’s going on there now is to reconnect it with the city, to reconnect it with the life of the city, and to make it people-receptive. And I think they’re doing a brilliant job. There are two things here: the physical and the philosophical. In fifty years, a place gets old. It’s been remodeled. Things have worked, things haven’t worked. They’ve been changed. And everything needs repair. All the systems begin to fail. And so it all comes together in the minds of the people who are part of the complex that something needs to be done.

ED: Lincoln Center couldn’t be built today—the impulse to build something like that belongs exactly to that midcentury period, right?

ALH: Absolutely. That was the time of all the big cultural centers across the country.

ED: And do you think Diller Scofidio+ Renfro’s mission now is to make it more people-friendly?

ALH: That’s absolutely one of their major purposes. The whole philosophy of architecture has changed. That’s the point. We no longer think of architecture as something to be isolated. Already with Alice Tully Hall, they have opened it and brought it forward to the street edge. Suddenly you’re invited into that lobby; you want to go in, whether you’re going to a performance or not. And Diller Scofidio+Renfro were hired to look at the public spaces and do something about that terrible concrete bridge. And they ended up saying, “Well when you’re talking about public spaces, you’re talking about their connections to the buildings.” And that’s the reason for what they did to Tully Hall. Also, the Beaumont Plaza was a fine space, but it was dead. That meant something was missing. Now there will be a new restaurant. And the most wonderful thing, I think, is what they’re doing at the main entrance. There are two roads of cars, and you have to cross that. It’s horrible. The cars will go underneath and a set of low-rise stairs will invite you directly up into the plaza from the street. It’s going to be a beautiful way to enter. We all know the main plaza is a superb space; it worked from the beginning, so of course that’s not being touched, but because we’ve made a lot of technological advances in the twenty-first century there will be improvements, like lighting, and I think it will be better than ever. Then there will be a smaller set of the same kind of stairs on Sixty-fifth Street. You’ll be able to come up from the street onto the plaza, where the Beaumont is, and the café. So this is very thoughtful planning that brings it right up to the way we think about urban spaces, culture, and city life in the twenty-first century.

ED: In fifty years, when this renovation has to be remodeled, where do you think we’ll be?

ALH: Oh, they’ll do it over. They’ll do it over because by then all of this—which we hope will work beautifully and be wonderful, and be used for a long time—will go through the same cycle. And there’ll be different needs, and maybe even different kinds of cultural institutions. Who knows, in fifty years? But this is such a strong unit, and so important to the city, that I have no doubt that, even if it turned out to be overused and abused after fifty years, the same process would bring it back to life. But in terms of life and culture and architecture fifty years from now— things are always going to change. Always. ▪

Header Photo: Beaumont Plaza's signature reflecting pool, home to the monumental "Reclining Figure" by preeminent mid-century sculptor Henry Moore since 1965, underwent a 2010 redesign of its Hypar Pavillion. Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Photograph at twilight by Chasi Annexy.