New World Center
 |
|
| Location | 500 17th Street Miami Beach, Florida, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 25°47′31″N 80°07′59″W / 25.792°N 80.133°W |
| Type | Concert hall |
| Seating type | Reserved |
| Capacity | 756 |
| Construction | |
| Built | 2008–2011 |
| Opened | January 26, 2011 |
| Construction cost | $160 million |
| Architect | Frank Gehry |
| Website | |
| Venue website | |
The New World Center is a concert hall in the South Beach section of Miami Beach, Florida, that is designed by Frank Gehry. It is the home of the New World Symphony, with a capacity of 756 seats. It opened in January 2011.
Located one block north of Lincoln Road in the South Beach stretch of Miami Beach, the building also features a new 2.5-acre public park next to it, designed by the firm West 8 (after Gehry relinquished the job following a budget reduction). A half acre of that is the SoundScape area, which allows outside visitors to experience live, free "wallcasts" of select events throughout the season through the use of visual and audio technology on a 7,000-square-foot (650 m2) projection wall. Such wallcasts are planned to occur at least twice a month. A sound system incorporating 167 individually tuned speakers augments the high-definition video presentation. During performances, QR codes are shown to enable the outside audience to scan them and obtain more information about the work in question. In addition to live broadcasts of events inside, works in the video arts themselves can be shown on the wall, including those produced during the Art Basel Miami Beach event. The projection wall is said to be the largest permanently established projection surface in North America.
Over a thousand people watched the wallcasts during each of the performances in the center's opening week. By the end of the park's first year, The Miami Herald wrote that the free films, video art, and concert wallcasts there had "produced a much-needed sense of community."
The acoustics for the center were designed by Yasuhisa Toyota. Gehry and Toyota had previously worked together on the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The intentionally small seating arrangement is steeply banked, allowing concertgoers to be close to the musicians (no seat is more than thirteen rows from the stage). Gehry said "the audience is right in the music." Projections upon sail-like panels hanging from the hall ceiling allow performances to be accompanied by video presentations. The center includes training facilities for the symphony, which specializes in being the country's only full-time orchestral academy preparing musicians for careers in symphony orchestras and ensembles, with state-of-the-art Internet2 technological support for instruction to be given by top musicians and conductors anywhere in the world.
...
Wikipedia