About the Architect

 New Mexico Architect Antoine Predock speaks  about the $22 million (1997 dollars), 514-seat Spencer Theater for the  Performing Arts in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Predock also designed a 514-seat theater  at Arizona State University, an 1800-seat auditorium at Thousand Oaks,  California, and the La Jolla Playhouse. Visit Antoine Predock's Spencer Theater  page. 

by Brad Cooper

Sometimes in the early stages of the process of making a  building, making art...it is a little mysterious."

The inspiration for the Spencer Theater was New Mexico in  general and this site in particular, coupled with the inspiration of a client  who is adventurous...who really wanted to stretch the possibilities of a  theater.

"Jackie Spencer wanted  a world class facility, one that didn’t simply become a regional playhouse, but  really had the potential for connecting with culture globally.

"The clay model right away emerged from the meadow, and I  started working on a big, essentially flat clay base, and I began to work the  building out of that.

"I began to see a big long line coming out of the earth,  connecting the land and the sky; from zero to 95 feet."

."I don’t think that the building could have happened  anywhere else the way that it has. I’ve experimented with angling forms for  other complexes...music schools and so forth...but as a free standing  theater...just a theater by itself...it could only happen here. There is no  theater to parallel this one. There is no comparison.

"It’s been a great adventure. Jackie Spencer was a dynamo;  a force of nature.

"Early in the model I realized  that there could be an amazing possibility for the lobby if it weren’t simply  absorbed in the overall envelope of the building. I saw The Phantom of the Opera  and I began to think of how powerful a symbol the chandelier  was...symbolic of the nature of theater. I thought, well...this is a modern  building---we’re not going to hang chandeliers all over the place...how about  the lobby becoming a chandelier, a faceted crystalline realm where you almost  felt as though you were entering a realm of light and crystal.
 

"You’ll notice that the big, long north-facing facade is sloped. It would have  been very simple to have a vertical line there, but it didn’t feel right. As I  was working with the clay model I began to shape that so it was more than a  simple abstract wedge.

."Let’s say it’s universal (the  playhouse/auditorium space); there’s a universality about the proscenium stage  that goes way back. There’s something about the traditional proscenium stage  that’s still very evocative. The theater has to do many things and it’s a  conventional wisdom, almost a cliché, that if you try to do too many things, you  don’t do one right. With this theater we have the possibility of musical  performance and spoken work and drama coexisting beautifully."

FROM MAY 17, 2007---

Antoine Predock FAIA presented  the AIA/UK 2007 Keynote Lecture at the RIBA Jarvis Hall on 15 May, 2007. This  was held in conjunction with the United Visions exhibition, and RIBA President  Jack Pringle and AIA National Secretary David Proffitt, AIA gave introductory  remarks. Antoine Predock titled his lecture ‘West East’ giving a clue to his  desert beginnings and current projects in the Far East. Predock began his  academic career studying engineering and it was through a fortuitous encounter  with architect Don Schlegel that Predock focused his attentions on architecture.  Early projects in New Mexico led to more significant projects such as the  Arizona Science Center. A sense of earth, place, and light were consistent  themes of these projects. Predock’s design process includes the use of large  collages and clay models. The use of sculptural modelling is evidenced in  projects such as the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts that has a  commanding presence in its mountainous setting. The AIA Gold Medallist in his  later projects showed a keen appreciation for the importance of the  architectural procession through and around a building. The Canadian Museum of  Human Rights currently in design showed a mastery of integration between  massing, place, and promenade through an uplifting series of spaces. The  National Palace Museum in Taiwan, also in design, is a phenomenal project that  creates a ‘Jade Mountain’ of marble and glass to house significant cultural  artifacts. Predock showed numerous other projects during the course of his  lecture, and concluded with a lively question  and answer session..

MORE INFO ON ANTOINE PREDOCK AT  www.predock.com