Designed originally by Max Abramovitz in 1962, the David Geffen Hall, home to New York’s Philharmonic, at Lincoln Center, has gone under multiple renovations over the decades. These efforts have attempted to address the acoustical challenges that remained unresolved.

The reimagination project reconceives the entire facility within its existing historic shell to create a more welcoming, intimate audience experience, featuring state-of-the-art acoustics and technical capabilities. With a new concert hall as the building’s centerpiece, all public spaces are also being reconceptualized to provide greater opportunities for people to gather and more intuitive circulation throughout its public and back-of-house facilities.

The design transforms the existing concert hall from a cavernous rectilinear shoebox into a curvilinear unified room with acoustics and optimized sightlines. By relocating the stage forward by 7.6 m (25 ft) and eliminating the proscenium, the seating wraps around the stage, bringing the entire audience closer to the performers.

The new hall is a flexible space that is readily adaptable to a range of stage and seating configurations supported by state-of-the-art infrastructure. In addition to a highly versatile performance space, the new hall also features updated back-of-house facilities to accommodate the wide-ranging needs of performers and production teams.