The Do-It-Yourself Acropolis

Auger-tongued H. L. Mencken once described vast stretches of the U.S. as a "Sahara of the Bozart." In those days, grand opera companies or symphony orchestras seldom ventured outside a dozen or so of the largest cities; public art museums, if they existed at all, were usually ill-lit annexes to the local fossil and arrowhead collection. The theater meant Broadway, and the road companies that once trouped every town hall in the land had long since bowed to the onslaughts of celluloid and popcorn.

Today, across the U.S., culture centers are springing up like puffballs on a dewy morning. To date, close to $375 million is involved in building projects scheduled to house the arts in 70 cities. It has even developed into a kind of competition. Local boosters now tout their cities' artistic attractions more than their rail connections, and the effort is paying off: IBM's choice of Rochester, Minn., San Jose, Calif., and Westchester, N.Y., for new locations was swayed by the lively cultural life in those areas. In Cincinnati, Procter & Gamble mails a brochure on local cultural events to potential recruits. Projects to woo the muses and the masses are now big business, and range in scope and ambition from Manhattan's $142 million Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which opens for business next month with the completion of the new Philharmonic Hall, to Rockville, Md., which has recently built itself a $190,000 art center. Among the more notable projects:

>> Los Angeles. The $25 million Music Center designed by Welton Becket & Associates comprises a 3,310-seat auditorium for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; a circular amphitheater for experimental drama seating 869, equipped with an elevator stage; a theater with 1,700 seats for plays. More than half the cost is coming from revenue bonds backed by Los Angeles County, the rest by private donation. It is a pet project of Mrs. Norman Chandler, wife of the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. She has already raised $9,400,000. Also under way in Los Angeles: a $10 million County Museum of Art, designed by William Pereira Associates, which will rise near the La Brea tar pits this summer. It will be financed totally by private gifts.

>> Trenton, N J. The New Jersey State Cultural Center will contain an auditorium, a planetarium, a library and a museum. Part of a complex of new state capitol buildings now under construction, the Cultural Center will cost $6,000,000, is being financed by the New Jersey Teachers' Pension and Annuity Fund. The planetarium's dome will float over a reflecting pool, will house an "intermediate space transit instrument" which will project the heavens not only as they appear on earth but from the moon.

>> Seattle. Major legacy of the Century 21 Exposition, which will close on Oct. 21, will be the handsome Seattle Center, a $40 million cultural complex that includes a 3,100-seat opera house, an 800-seat theater, an exhibition hall, and a coliseum that can serve as a site for conventions.

The opera house, built inside the gutted frame of Seattle's drafty and flat-floored Civic Auditorium, boasts a rich interior of cherry wood, scarlet plush and gold; it is linked to the theater and exhibition hall by covered promenades.

>> Houston. The proposed $6,000,000 Center for the Performing Arts includes a 3,022-seat auditorium with contractable walls and Continental-style horseshoe-shaped balconies. The center is a gift from the Houston Endowment, Inc., a foundation set up by the late Jesse H. Jones. Also planned: a theatre in the round, financed partially by the Endowment.

>> San Rafael, Calif. First phase of the Marin County Civic Center, which may cost more than $15 million upon completion, is finished. Designed initially by Frank Lloyd Wright (it was one of his last projects), the Civic Center is also called "The War Memorial" by local wags in reference to the almost ten years of wrangling that went on. The county administration offices will be finished in a few months. Included in Wright-designed buildings to come; a hall of justice, an auditorium, an exhibition pavilion.

>> Washington, D.C. The long-talked-of $30 million National Cultural Center has had trouble with Congress, which agreed to provide a Potomac site at Government expense, but insisted that the public must raise the money to build it. Heading the fund-raising committee: Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Eisenhower.

>> Other U.S. cities and towns with cultural gleams in their eyes; Winter Park, Fla., planning a $2,000,000 theater, museum and concert hall; Oklahoma City, a combined arts and science museum; Baltimore and St. Petersburg, Fla., new concert halls as part of their civic centers; Salt Lake City, Asheville, N.C., and Ypsilanti, Mich., theaters at a total cost of $2,150,000; Laramie, Wyo., Hartford, Conn., Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Odessa, Texas, Gadsden, Ala., and Tenafly, N.J., have art centers and cultural projects planned or promised.

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