The building with a total area of about 11 thousand square meters and worth almost 50 million dollars has already been recognized as the largest complex in the United States designed for studio dance classes. The complex includes 9 studios, a dance laboratory, numerous offices, wardrobe and dressing rooms, 2 libraries, and a hostel for students. Donations for its construction have been collected over the past five years: about half of the necessary funds came from charities in Houston, such as the Brown Foundation, Houston Endowment and Cullen Foundation, the rest of the amount came from individuals. One of the dance studios is named after the most generous donor - member of the Board of Directors Melza Barr, who donated 1 million dollars. And the lobby of the Dance Center is named after Phoebe and Bobby Tudor, who donated 500 thousand. Now that the building is finally ready for use, the Houston Ballet hopes to make choreographic education available to nearly 30,000 people (by 2015). The official opening of the complex will take place on April 9, but rehearsals are already taking place in all dance classes.
The architectural solution of the Dance Center has an emphatically restrained character. The building consists of several parallelepipeds put together. They are faced with alternating light and dark granite and are slightly displaced relative to each other, due to which the simple form acquires additional depth and tectonics. The only decoration of the facades is the panoramic glazing of the dance classes - during the day, the giant windows work like mirrors, reflecting the buildings surrounding the center, and in the evening they turn into screens that “broadcast” dance classes and lift the veil of secrecy over the art of choreography. As the chief architect of the project, Marshall Strabala, admits, he saw his main task in creating a worthy "catwalk" for ballet art, and not in any way a self-sufficient image building. Therefore, the facades are interpreted by him as frames that do not distract from the contemplation of the "canvases". In many respects, the immediate environment of the new complex disposed to this very decision: office buildings prevail in downtown Houston. The new Dance Center is connected to the Wortem Theater Center, where the Houston Ballet puts on its performances, by a covered metal bridge.
A. M.
