The Lindemann Performing Arts Center (The Lindemann) pushes boundaries of architectural innovation to inspire new forms of artmaking and collaboration in performance, teaching, and research, across music, theater, dance, and media. A novel typology where all six surfaces of its shoebox-shaped main hall can modulate physically and acoustically, this radically flexible arts “laboratory” transforms amongst five primary pre-set configurations and many secondary modes. The pre-sets consist of an immersive experimental media cube; a 388-seat recital hall; a 275-seat end-stage theater; a 530-seat concert hall with a stage for a 100-piece orchestra and a choir loft for 70; and a flat floor configuration. The automated and manually-assisted performance equipment for transformation includes five suspended seating gantries, forty acoustic ceiling reflectors, seven motorized utility battens, three lighting bridges, two stage lifts, three orchestra lifts, six telescoping orchestra risers, a three-unit retractable seating system, five seating wagons, three seating wagon lifts, a ring of deployable acoustic curtains, and a complete technical gridiron. The building also houses an orchestra rehearsal/performance space (135 seats), a dance rehearsal/performance space (98 seats), and a theater rehearsal/performance space (50 seats). A clerestory slices through the building at lobby level, opening the artmaking to the campus and city.
