Soundscape Park

This guide to Soundscape Park in downtown Miami follows architect Frank Gehry's design for the New World Symphony's glass-walled concert hall next door, built at the invitation of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, whom Gehry had once babysat as a child in Los Angeles. It traces Gehry's condition for taking the job, that the hall could not hide, and the park's giant outdoor screen and speaker array, built to broadcast live concerts onto the lawn where you're standing. On opening night in two thousand eleven, more than a thousand people lay on blankets right on this grass to watch a free concert.