David Geffen Hall Renovation, New York

Philharmonic Hall opened on September 23, 1962, and reviewers were knocking its sound within the week. Lincoln Center gutted the auditorium in 1976 and tried again in 1992, and neither fix held. The David Geffen Hall renovation, a $550 million project that reopened the building on October 8, 2022, was the first attempt to rethink the room rather than patch it.

It also finished early. Lincoln Center used the pandemic shutdown, when the New York Philharmonic couldn’t perform anyway, to pull work forward, and the hall reopened roughly two years ahead of the original schedule.

Project Scope

Max Abramovitz’s travertine colonnade stayed. Nearly everything behind it went, and the hall was stripped to its frame. Diamond Schmitt Architects led the redesign of the auditorium, now the Wu Tsai Theater, as design and executive architect. Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects designed the public spaces. Turner Construction Company was construction manager, Paul Scarbrough of Akustiks did the acoustics, and Joshua Dachs of Fisher Dachs Associates was theater designer, with Kohler Ronan and Thornton Tomasetti as engineers.

The room got smaller on purpose. Lincoln Center says capacity dropped by about 500 seats, to roughly 2,200. The stage moved about 25 feet forward so audiences wrap around the sides and rear of the orchestra, and there’s no traditional proscenium. Akustiks shaped and detailed the wood wall surfaces to strengthen resonance, particularly in the bass, which critics of the old room had singled out for decades.

Out front, the main lobby roughly doubled in usable area once the ticket booths came out and the escalators moved to the perimeter. The whole project covers about 242,000 square feet.

Why It Matters

Concert halls rarely get a second shot at their bones, and this one nearly didn’t. Norman Foster was hired for a renovation in 2005 and later left. The Philharmonic shelved another plan in October 2017. Lincoln Center only committed to the current scheme in December 2019, four years after David Geffen’s $100 million gift put his name on the building.

Lincoln Center reported 42% participation by minority- and women-owned businesses in the construction, and the renovation picked up a 2026 design award from the AIA New York chapter.

The acoustic verdict will take more than a few seasons to settle. But for the first time since 1962, the orchestra is playing in a room designed around it instead of one retrofitted to apologize for itself.

Project Team & Details