From its main entrance on Broadway, you might think that Alice Tully Hall-housed in the Juilliard School building on the campus of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts-had been entirely redesigned. But turn the corner and walk west along W 65th Street and you’ll notice that the south facade changes about a third of the block down. The gestural, shallow square cut-outs and Tetris-like windows folding over corners and indentations sink until they turn into examples of rational modernism and the floors below are the same as the Juilliard you might have known when it was completed in 1969. If you look closer you may notice that at that point, the travertine cladding changes from light to a weathered dark.

… Even before entering the remodelled Alice Tully Hall, it is apparent that the new space offers a vastly improved experience for concertgoers. The original theatre, designed by Pietro Belluschi, was long Lincoln Center’s weakest building….

… The renovation comprises a new extension of almost 2,300m2 and an overhaul of the building’s east facade on Broadway, interior lobby, the upper levels of Juilliard, and a new mid-block entrance at the building’s south face on 65th Street. It is thus a series of move ranging from small to large, and while the structure and much of Juilliard remains untouched, the building feel quite new. On the south facade, for instance, the architects have also created a new entrance to Juilliard-a significant move because previously the famous performing arts conservatoire had no street presence. A large staircase featuring stoop-like steps for sitting and hanging out leads up the school’s main level on the second floor.

Back on Broadway, the new double-height lobby is fully glazed and the entrance grand. The building’s most prominent gesture is the raised south-west corner and projecting dance studio, which has echoes of Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, also by DS + R. Initially, the new building seems dominated by its glazing; providing an unfortunate connection to the nearby Time Warner Center (though partner Charles Renfro did point out that Alice Tully uses a more elegant one-way cable wall system). Yet the building also features several tricks of perspective, detailing and form that indicate a subtle conceptual process.

The architects employed careful scaling to separate the entrance from street level without losing grandeur. The main doors are actually set down a half-storey, a tactic that doesn’t read from afar, but is appreciable once you’re on the same block. Descending to enter the building-and original feature, but one which the architects have used to their advantage-creates a dissonance between the lobby and the street which, ironically, makes the entrance feel more ceremonial and less like a storefront. This is emphasised by the grandstand-like outdoor stoop seating, located just under the corner of the overhang for pedestrians to sit and watch comings and goings.

The interior of the lobby is fairly standard, though its monumental scale makes a welcome change from the building’s previous incarnation. A long concrete bar protrudes from the box office into the lobby space and sits in front of the theatre. A suspended platform floats overhead, providing the first-floor lounge with a lookout. Clad in hyperpolished Portuguese azul ataija, a creamy limestone, the floors gleam. Between the minor changes in level, the glazing and the vantage points, the architects have clearly thought about how the space structures movement and exchange between the building’s users to create its own performance.

This concern underlies making the building, above all else, an experience rather than a form. Despite the simplicity of the space-this area only comprises the lobby, theatre and services-the architects succeed in creating an experiential sequence that structures a kind of narrative. The outer surface of the auditorium, for example, is made of muirapiranga, a dark, rich wood that creates the perception of a building within a building. By distinguishing the theatre volume through use of materials, the architects emphasise it both as a spectacle and a destination.

The theatre couldn’t lose any capacity in the renovation, so all 1,087 seats were retained. Its volume is about the same, though the architects were able to reclaim some height, which has had a noticeable impact on the sense of space. The technology was also upgraded, with automated curtains and a screen for the annual New York Film Festival. The gentle folds in the wood panels and matrix of bumps on the rear stage wall serve purely acoustic ends… – arguably its most innovative feature.