No building in the Hudson Valley is more modern - yet pays more homage to
the region's beauty - than the Fisher Center, which opened in May 2003.
Designed by Frank Gehry, whose Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has been
hailed as a defining work of late 20th-century architecture, the Fisher
Center is the first of his buildings to be constructed in the Northeast.
Like the Hudson River painters a century before him, Gehry makes use of
the region's light in his design. Clad in undulating stainless steel, the
building literally glows in the sunlight, while on cloudy days it blends
into the sky. The center's curves mimic the Valley's rolling landscape; seen
from the top of the sloping meadow in which it sits, it seems to be floating
in front of the distant Catskills.
The building's push-the-envelope
design was intended to spark risk-taking creativity within, where there are
state-of-the-art performance spaces for students, as well as two theaters: a
200-seat Black Box for experimental works and a lyre-shaped 900-seat concert
hall. (Thanks to a series of movable panels, the stage can be configured to
offer dance, opera, and classical music.) The simplicity of the concert
hall, which is clad in concrete, is enlivened by the whimsical Douglas fir
"doodles" attached to the walls. More than aesthetic, Gehry's wooden
curlicues aid the acoustics. The center is the home of the college's annual
SummerScape arts festival and the Bard Music Festival.
Also on the
Bard campus is the Center for Curatorial Studies, whose museum offers
exhibitions of contemporary art, and Blithewood, an 1899 Beaux Arts mansion.
Both the house and its Italian garden have been restored.
The
Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts is located on the Bard
College campus in Annandale-On-Hudson. Tours are available on a limited
basis and the schedule varies. Please call for confirmation of current
tours. Admission fee. 845-758-7900