Tobin Center for the Performing Arts | LMN Architects

Combining one of San Antonio’s most beloved architectural icons with advanced technology to create one of the most flexible multi-purpose performance halls in the United States, the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts embraces the multi-faceted cultural identity of the city. Drawing inspiration from San Antonio’s rich vernacular of color, pattern and public celebration—the new performing arts center offers a diverse architectural experience capable of continuous transformation in response to programmatic and environmental influences.

The aspirations for the renovation/expansion project were threefold: to create a large, flexible-floor, multi-use performance space with acoustics comparable to the world’s finest concert halls; to maintain the historic entrance and arcade of the Spanish Colonial-style building for future generations; and to create a vibrant connection between the city’s main cultural venue and the River Walk.

While retaining the Municipal Auditorium’s treasured historic façade, the Tobin Center weaves a new 183,000-square foot facility into its framework of public space—including a 1,768-seat main performance hall, and a 231-seat studio theater. The tall, slender form of the main performance hall optimizes sightlines and provides the ideal geometry for rich, reverberant symphonic sound, while the stagehouse and orchestra floor accommodates a sophisticated variety of modern stage systems.

The metallic veil that enwraps the program volumes creates a distinctive presence on the San Antonio skyline, changing in appearance with different patterns of daylight and coming alive at night with programmable LEDs. While the veil was not originally designed with a parametric model, the LMN Tech Studio was asked to re-model the system parametrically in order to facilitate continual adjustments to the geometry during the detailing process. Using the power of parametrics to establish mathematical rules governing the form and construction of the system, the project team could make continuous modifications at a high level and let the software re-draw the details of the resulting panel configurations. This resulted in the ability to provide instant material takeoffs and cost estimates for each proposed modification.

The opportunity to create a multiple-story feature wall in the Grand Lobby also drew on the LMN Tech Studio’s modeling and fabrication expertise. The wall follows the compound curvature of the performance hall, swelling outward as it rises from the lobby floor. A sequence of 15 unique panel types interlock across the surface to create a progressively shifting surface texture, reminiscent of both the flow of the San Antonio River and the deep regional culture of patterned tile work. The team used parametric modeling to sculpt the wall at 3 scales: the overall shape, the breakdown of the curved surface into panels, and the articulation of each panel to produce the overall texture. The resulting 3D models of the panels were used to create plaster molds for study, and then sent directly to the fabricator to generate full-scale mockups.