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Roger Morgan Studio
Beyer Blinder Belle
Theater as theater. That's the feeling you get in the technically forward but warmly nostalgic Ford Center for the Performing Arts, reconstructed from the bones of the vintage Lyric (1903) and Apollo (1920) music theaters. An enterprise of Garth Drabinsky's Livent, Inc., the Ford Center's components1,821 generously spaced seats, large rehearsal and choreography halls, a VIP lounge, a souvenir shop, supersize restrooms, and a great big bar-cater to the economics of today's musical entertainment business. But the atmosphere is pure fantasy, recalling the gracious, innocent, heady era of "Ragtime," the inaugural musical for which it is, by intention, an ideal architectural showcase.
Architects Beyer Blinder Belle collaborated with theater design specialists Roger Morgan Studio on the interiors. Their primary challenge, says partner-in-charge Dick Blinder, was to work within historic guidelines imposed by the New 42nd Street development agency, while retaining only a few original elements of the gutted theaters: the Apollo's proscenium arch, boxes, and dome and the Lyric's ornate sculpted stone facade. "The question," RMS principal Roger Morgan recalls, "was how to integrate these islands of original detail into a unified whole that would reflect the spirit of the old Lyric and Apollo yet project a coherent identity of its own." The solution involved melding original and recreated "period" elements that defer to the original, using subtle color changes to mark the distinction between them. Period photos from the Museum of the City of New York's Byron Collection were an important reference, Morgan says.
While the Apollo's Adamesque vocabulary inspires the auditorium, classical details from the Lyric's facade key the interiors of the lobby, which extends from 42nd to 43rd streets....