Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House
Foster + Partners opera house of 2009, home of the Dallas Opera in the city's Arts District.
The Winspear was built as the centrepiece of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, part of a Dallas Arts District that already held the Meyerson Symphony Center and the Dallas Museum of Art. Foster + Partners set a drum-shaped auditorium clad in deep red glass inside a fully glazed lobby, and shaded the whole block with a steel canopy 60 metres square that tempers the Texas sun. The house opened in October 2009 and seats about 2,200.
The auditorium is a horseshoe of four balcony tiers in the European tradition, with adjustable acoustics and a ceiling chandelier of some 300 acrylic rods that rise as a performance begins. It is the principal stage of the Dallas Opera, founded in 1957, and also takes touring musicals, dance and concerts programmed by the centre. A glazed foyer means passers-by on Flora Street can see into the building, an intentional break with the closed opera houses of the previous century.
Highlights
- Drum-shaped auditorium in deep red glass within a glazed lobby
- Steel sun canopy spanning the whole site
- Chandelier of about 300 acrylic rods that lifts before curtain-up
- Four-tier horseshoe house seating around 2,200
