Lincoln Center Inside Out

Book excerpt: The redesign of Lincoln Center is one of the most challenging and innovative civic projects in recent urban history. Over the past eight years Diller Scofi dio + Renfro, in close collaboration with Lincoln Center's leadership, has transformed the fi fty year old Modernist citadel into a porous and democratic campus. This visually rich document is the first comprehensive book to feature the extensive redevelopment in its entirety. Through a combination of photographs, drawings, renderings, archival records and texts, the book describes the innovative strategies that have dissolved the public/private divide and effectively turned the campus inside-out, extending the spectacle of the performance halls into the Center's mute public spaces and surrounding streets. Conceived as a cross between an art book, a scholarly record, and an architectural diary this publication demonstrates how the recent redesign both respects and challenges preconceived notions about Lincoln Center and its ongoing role as a cultural hub in an ever-changing city. This unorthodox publication is comprised entirely of gatefolds; a series of inside-out centerfolds where the exterior pages of each spread feature glossy, large-format, full-bleed photographs highlighting different parts of the campus. Inside the gatefolds, tucked behind these lush photos, is a series of "back stories" that reveal the surprising evolution and unexpected afterlife of the same spaces.