Dallas unveils opera house plans

The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation has unveiled conceptual designs for a new opera house and theater.

Designed by Foster and Partners of London, the 2,200-seat opera house’s most distinct feature is its bright red horseshoe-shaped auditorium. A towering glass wall will wrap around it and enclose the lobby and foyer. The firm is best known for Berlin’s rebuilt Reichstag and the glass canopy that covers the Great Court of the British Museum in London.

The 600-seat theater, unconventionally shaped like a massive cube, is designed by the Rotterdam-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture, which recently completed a celebrated design for the Seattle Public Library. The $275-million complex, which also will include a dance space and two smaller theaters, is projected to open in 2009; $170 million has been raised.

-- Nicolai Ouroussoff