The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts just opened this summer. On the campus of Bard College, a small liberal arts school on the banks of the Hudson, the center is a huge accomplishment, with a construction cost allegedly around $65M. It contains an 800 seat theatre very tall and narrow, with huge volume compared to the small footprint and seating capacity. Part the current trend in theatre architecture; it has two rings of boxes, and a mid-orchestra rail right at the box line. No transverse aisle, and each seating section is relatively small. The second space referred to affectionately as T2 is an extremely flexible black-box proscenium hybrid. Below grade seating is on adjustable platforming, the rest of the seating runs on gymnasium style sliding seating units. Flexible catwalks, with a counterweighted flyhouse trimming in the mid-30' range. There are also 3 more teaching studios/ performance spaces. There are ancillary facilities, including a reasonably sized scene shop. The large space is home to the most massive orchestra shell I've ever seen. I hope it sounds good, for the vast investment in space that it occupies.

In some sense the building feels like just another of Frank's curvy buildings, similar to much of the rest of his canon. (see the Vitra Museum, the Wiseman Museum, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Experience Music Project, the Disney Concert Hall, the Design for a New Guggenheim and on and on) I think this is precisely what Bard College wanted, and they certainly got it. I think they also ended up with an incredibly beautiful theatre complex, but these things are best judged in about 5 years when some breaking-in has happened.

As I look at the pictures I'm posting, I'm struck by the fact that none of them are showing the huge boxy poured concrete masses that make up the bulk of the building. The main theatre especially, is really just clad in swoopy roof over the lobby and the auditorium roof. The unique forms of the roof carry itself best in the T2 lobby and the studios, this half of the building is much more integrated into what you see from the outside.

One note- look at the roof over the main theatre front door. It must be 150' square, dumping all the water straight onto the space right outside the vestibule. Oy.

I think one lesson here is basically that just because you can realize anything you can build a model of; it doesn't necessarily mean you should. That, and you might just get what you paid for.
I've only studied one other Gehry building with any kind of depth, look at my page on the Guggenheim Bilbao for a few comparitive photos.

The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
Bard College. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
Frank O. Gehry 2003.