Tuning up: Brown’s cutting-edge Lindemann Performing Arts Center marks its first year

"When you match the building's revelations with the Open Curriculum and Brown's approach to crafting your own academic vision, giving people agency in what they want to do, you get this really beautiful, unexpected combination," said Avery Willis Hoffman, artistic director of the Brown Arts Institute.

As part of the collaborative, multidisciplinary planning process for The Lindemann, located in the University's Perelman Arts District, the design team met weekly with students, faculty, artists and administrators, all of whom brought a myriad of visions to the table for the multi-genre performance space that would fulfill complex and diverse needs.

"The fact that Brown committed to the cost impact of getting everyone together on a weekly basis was phenomenal," said Adam Chizmar, a REX project manager. "Maybe even made it possible."

Ramus said there were two goals for the building's design.

"One was this extraordinarily transformable high-performance main hall that would be exceptional for orchestra, for recital, for theater, for dance, for media - which is a new animal," Ramus said. "And then there's that glass clerestory that cuts through the building, the whole intent of which was to allow the contents to bleed out and for the University to invade."

Barton, a member of Brown's Class of 1978 who concentrated in semiotics, has walked Brown's paths for decades, and speaks poetically about the "porosity" of the campus, the way it is built into the larger Providence community. In particular, he loves the way The Lindemann's glass "bridge" allows passersby to feel one with what's happening inside the institution.

To ensure the safe movement of the seating, glass walls, balconies, flooring and the sail-like acoustic reflector panels anchored end-to-end across the ceiling, the building relies on a pully system, making The Lindemann one of the most transformative theater spaces in the world, it is also one of the safest, Ramus said.