Our design for the new Musco Center for the Arts provides the University and the community with a world-class, highly flexible 1,050 seat multipurpose performance venue. Working with the acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, perhaps best known for his work at Disney Concert Hall, we were able to design an auditorium that can be readily and seamlessly transformed from a proscenium theater to an acoustically superb concert hall. This high level of flexibility allows the hall to meet the needs of the University’s theater, music and dance departments, as well as touring groups. Restricted by the City’s height restrictions, the fly tower and auditorium are located one level below the existing grade, which was achieved by creating a large, sloping garden that lowers the site while also providing a gracious forecourt to the building’s entry. A two-story lobby provides access to the balcony level and is open to below, accentuating the height of the space. The lobby, with its visual and physical connection to the garden, encourages a wide range of public offerings, serving as one of the University’s favorite special event spaces at non-performance times.

“The City of Orange now houses an ideal opera house, potentially the best in the West, and maybe even something more . . .”
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times