It seems that British architect Norman Foster doesn’t have enough to do, now that his design for the Winspear Opera House is going up. He’s just been hired to re-do Manhattan’s great Beaux Arts landmark, the New York Public Library — as part of a $500 million renovation of the building, and a $1.2 billion [...]

Yesterday, it was a $3 million gift to the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts — an additional $3 million gift from Diane and Hal Brierley — but today, it’s a still-mysterious $6 million gift. The DCPA folks aren’t saying who, yet. But that makes 129 gifts of $1 million or more into the center’s [...]

The Winspear Opera House will be a downtown beacon — covered in red glass. OK, so no one will miss it. But why red? And how did they make it so rich and shiny?

Those Stone Age caves, especially the ones in the south of France, are not just remarkable for their famous paleolithic wall art. They have incredible acoustics — the kind of resonance and sustain that may have led cave dwellers to pick them out as ceremonial gathering places, even before they painted a thing on the [...]

Although the red glass that will cover much of the Winspear Opera House will be one of its most distinguishing features, both the Winspear and the Wyly Theatre break with Dallas’ tradition by prominently using clear glass on their exteriors — not mirrored or tinted or smoked glass. But performance halls wrap their arts in darkness. What will they do with all that murderous Texas sunlight?