We’re proud to celebrate the official opening of the new Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow today, July 9, as part of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, America’s longest-running international dance festival, located on Jacob’s Pillow’s beautiful destination campus in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts.
The landmark new theatre is America’s only purpose-built new dance theatre to open in 2025 and is set to become one of the most technologically advanced theatres in the world dedicated to dance.
Occupying the site of the former studio theatre from 1990 – which was destroyed by fire in November 2020 – the reimagined Doris Duke Theatre is designed by an international team led by Francine Houben, founding architect of the leading Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, in partnership with architecture and landscape architecture firm Marvel, and theatre and acoustics consultants Charcoalblue.
The reimagined Doris Duke Theatre is approximately 20,000 sq. ft., compared with the former Duke’s roughly 8,500 sq. ft. footprint. The design allows for multi-use flexibility, so that the building can support performances, events, residencies, and more, sometimes simultaneously. The flexible seating configurations can accommodate 220 - 400, depending on the size of the performance space, with an array of seating and stage configurations.
Rooted in the rolling hills of the Berkshires, the theatre honours the rich heritage of Jacob’s Pillow while pushing the frontiers of the performing arts. Indigenous principles shape the orientation and form, grounding the design in an acknowledgement of the four directions, where North, South, East, and West hold deep meaning in Indigenous cultures. The organic, layered structure, divided into seven bands, honours the Indigenous philosophy of the “seven generations,” where environmental consciousness plays a crucial role in shaping the world for generations to come.
Francine Houben, Mecanoo’s Creative Director and Founding Partner, said: “The design of the new Doris Duke Theatre reflects a balance of Indigenous design principles connected to nature with a robust theatrical infrastructure. For the theatre, we envisioned a magic wooden box which awakens the senses and deepens the connection between performer and audience, movement and space, light and shadow. Whether weaving through the dancing shadows of the veranda, opening the theatre to the outdoors, or being fully immersed in technology, the new Doris Duke Theatre is an architecture of connection; one where performance becomes a shared journey.”
The Mecanoo team is on site today, honoured to stand alongside the incredible Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival community in bringing this vision to life. Thank you to all the artists, collaborators, builders, and supporters who made this extraordinary transformation possible.
Image copyright by Iwan Baan.