The Sky’s The Limit

The First Steel Girders of the New World Symphony Campus Go Up

By Ben Torter

Excitement is mounting with the erection of the first steel beams that will serve as the skeletal system of the New World Symphony’s much anticipated Frank Gehry-designed musical campus.

The steel girders, hoisted into place with construction cranes, mark the first major sign of progress since the gala groundbreaking for the project in January. It will be the first Gehry-designed project in Florida.

“Having broken ground in January, it finally fully expresses the fact that this building is arising,” NWS President and Chief Executive Officer Howard Herring said of the steel girders that reach toward the sky. “The scheduled completion is summer of 2010, but from now on, people are going to be aware of a Frank Gehry building arriving in Miami Beach. His architecture galvanizes neighborhoods, defines urban areas, brings new vitality to a community, and that’s what’s going to happen here.”

After completion, the NWS will move in, test and work out any kinks in the building before having the official grand opening to the public in January of 2011.

The $150 million endeavor is located at 1672 Drexel Ave., between Drexel and Pennsylvania Avenues, and will consist of a six-story campus, a city park to the east and an approximately 600-space public parking garage, all designed by Gehry.

“It will be the most important city center development for decades,” Herring said.

The New World Symphony is currently housed in the Lincoln Theatre on Lincoln Road, adjacent to the site of the new building. It was established 20 years ago by Carnival Cruise Lines founder Ted Arison and current NWS artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas, who also directs in San Francisco and serves as the Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. New World’s three-year postgraduate fellowship program boasts the preparation of “highly-gifted” students for careers in orchestras and musical ensembles.

Having outgrown its current space, the new campus will give the symphony’s 87 fellows more room to grow and perform with enhanced technology that will also make for a richer audience experience.

“When you bring that many talented young players into the community, it benefits from their performances, work in the schools, work in senior citizen facilities — from their presence in South Florida,” Herring said. “This new building will give our players a chance to do what they are doing at an even higher level.”

The primary performance space is slated to be 700 seats with 14 projectors that will light the ceiling and project images on all the acoustic sails. There will also be a projection onto the east facade of the building that will effectively turn the building inside out.

“So what we do in the laboratory will be available to those in the park that faces the east facade,” Herring said. “It will be a new experience for everyone.”

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