October 25, 2024

This past week, Diamond Schmitt launched its new book SET PIECES: Architecture for the Performing Arts in Fifteen Fragments in New York City with an event at the AIA Centre for Architecture. 

We celebrated with readings from leading architecture critics who contributed essays to the book, including Justin Davidson (Music & Architecture Critic for New York Magazine and Curbed) on ‘why concert halls still matter’, Kate Wagner (Architecture Critic for The Nation & Journalist) on ‘why acoustics matter’, and Robert Gerard Pietrusko (Designer & Composer, Associated Professor at University of Pennsylvania) on ‘Performing Spaces’.

Principal Donald Schmitt delivered a warm welcome, thanking all of the contributors who provided an enormous effort to help bring this book to fruition, including Paddy Harrington (concept, Frontier), Jennifer Sigler (concept and executive editor), Brian Sholis (executive editor, Frontier), Javier Zeller (managing editor, Diamond Schmitt) and Cristian Ordoñez (Graphic Design for Frontier).

Also present at the event were representatives from Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, National Sawdust, Fisher Dachs Associates, Jaffe Holden, The Trade Commissioner Arts and Cultural Industries for The Consulate General of Canada in New York, the Consul & Director for Foreign Policy & Diplomacy, Frontier, and Mimi Lien, set designer, who was also a contributor to Set Pieces. 

Thank you to all of our clients and collaborators who came out to support us, and who have worked with us on some of the performing arts projects and ideas that are represented in the book.

Published by Birkhäuser, SET PIECES: Architecture for the Performing Arts in Fifteen Fragments pairs the words of architects and leading critics with detailed visual explorations of Diamond Schmitt’s designs for some of the world’s most remarkable performing arts venues.

Set Pieces is available for purchase on Birkhäuser.