Art: Center Piece

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Six of the top architects in the U.S. have been working since 1955 on Manhattan's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and it has been, as one of them described it, rather like "trying to get six composers to write one symphony." In recent weeks, the theme has progressed to the point where the composers can start planning the final, climactic chord—a monumental piece of sculpture to be placed beside the reflecting pool in the North Plaza. From the beginning, the center's designers wanted something"heroic," and the name of Britain's Henry Moore (TIME cover, Sept. 21, 1959) kept popping up time and again.

It was a bold idea, for Moore's recent robust and rugged style would probably be in startling contrast to the varied elegance of the four surrounding buildings: the low-slung theater originally designed by the late Eero Saarinen, Max Abramovitz' travertine-columned Philharmonic Hall, Wallace K. Harrison's fluted Metropolitan Opera House, Pietro Belluschi's Juilliard School of Music. The center's governing committee got Moore to look at the site, and last week, after Yorkshire-born Sculptor Moore pored over a model of the site, he agreed to take on what should be the most formidable modern outdoor piece in a public place in all Manhattan. Just what his theme—if any—would be, he was not yet telling.