Theatre Design & Technology - Feb 1968 - 21

pastiche of the 18th Century. For all of Stone's neoromanticism, he remains a 20th-Century architect, it must
be admitted. But he builds with images that appeal to the
lay public, including the worship of the 18th-Century. Since
his commissions have often been major ones, the public
takes what they see as "important" architecture by the
"fash ionable" and therefore "best" architect and considers
it avant-garde thinking and high art. The public is understandably confused when professional s call those works
pompous packaging and romantic throwbacks. In terms of art
education, this is a lost opportunity.
"Give them what they want," architect Stone says. Today,
that is not how art is made. In the 18th-Century, art may
have been "What oft was thought but ne' er so well expressed," (though, even then, that better expression was expected to be startlingly good), but in the 20th Century, "Art
is to dare-and have been right."
Architect Stone does not dare. He does not reveal the essential nature of an activity or an experience with brilliant
flashes of original architectural vision. Saddeningly, the concept of Kennedy Center is not a progressive or original
vision. It is no symbol of architectural leadership for our
country, which in the 10 years that Edward Stone has held
his project together, (with commendable perseverance), has
progressed in great and original strides.

The 11 50-seat proscenium theatre designed for traditional Broadway
productions is to have walls of wood panels and a ceiling of suspended gold disks like those in Cal Tech's Beckman Auditorium and
in Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art, both also by the
architect. Photo: Maris (Estol. counesy Edward Durell Stone.

Kennedy Center, instead of presenting an eye-opening illumination on the social and spatial experience of the performing
arts, will only reveal everyman's marbleized encapsulation of
theatre-a symbol-the national museum of performing culture.
Facilities. Fourth of the major complaints raised about
Kennedy Center concern the facilities and equipment that
will be available. Despite the fact that theatre technicians
are more and more volubly concerned about whether these
facilities will be adequate, Kennedy Center is probably most
secure in this area, and is progressing, at the worst, toward
remediable goals.
The architect has chosen correctly, so far as I see it, a
scheme of large-halls-for-Iarge-events and small-halls-forintimate-events rather than mUltiform, multi-purpose halls.
His opera house seating 2200, symphony hall seating 2750,
theatre for 1100, and "Studio" drama theatre accommodating
510 make up a roster of facilities with broad flexibility for
bookings. This is underscored by the below-stage connection
between the opera and theatre backstage areas.
Within these facilities, mechanical stage devices do not
figure largely in the planning. However, they can be added
later if deemed desirable. Room is available, for example;
the opera stage is the same size as that at the new Metropolitan Opera House (except for the rear work area), Where

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