Christchurch Town Hall Research Articles

Simplicity of Form: a tale of two cathedrals and interiors lost?: Hamilton Founders Memorial Theatre (1962) and St Joseph's Catholic Church Morrinsville (1964)

St Joseph's Catholic Church, Morrinsville, was designed in 1958-62 by Doug Angus of Angus, Flood & Griffiths of Hamilton. Built in 1964-65, the design was radical, had simplicity in form both externally and internally. The simple external upturned parabola defied the level of innovation and detailing, creating both the exterior and interior form with the use of pre-stressed concrete ribs, and pre-cast panels between. The parabolic form was 49' 6" in height, designed by engineer Thomas Flood. The 8,000 sqft church accommodated 600 people. It was said to be New Zealand's largest single-pour concrete roof of the time. The Modernist interior was of a grand scale with the specially-designed fittings - only seen by parishioners. And this was part of its demise. The scale was for a cathedral not small-town New Zealand. Regionally significant in terms of architecture and engineering technology, an iconic Waikato church, and the work of an important Modernist architect and engineer, yet it was demolished in 2014. In the Waikato, at the same time as the church was being designed, the new regional theatre and "town hall" was on the drawing board of architect Aubrey de Lisle, of White, de Lisle and Jenkins of Hamilton. The Founders Memorial Theatre opened in November 1962, inspired by Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, which was the first civic theatre built in Great Britain after World War Two. The 1,249-seat theatre, built a decade before Christchurch Town Hall, has hosted international performers of note to local theatre and music productions within its "gently sloping wood panelled confines." Jazz great Louis Armstrong arrived for shows on 20 March 1963, but due to payment issues he almost didn't play at all. From Louis Armstrong to Cilla Black in 1965, to the home of the Finns, the theatre for over 60 years has been the focus of many from the new teenagers of the 1960s to classical music and the performance of the young ballet students. Closed in 2016 from lack of maintenance and ongoing strengthening, with the Hotere mural removed for the new Waikato Theatre, the interior now only used in the dark for police exercises as its fate awaits. Two very different cultural interiors – a cathedral for faith and a "cathedral" for performance – a church and a theatre.

Structural Awards 2021: Winners and commendations

Discover some of the best structural engineering the world has to offer as we present the winners and commendations in the Structural Awards 2021. The Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence was won by Christchurch Town Hall, Christchurch, New Zealand and Lille Langebro movable bridge, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Acoustical Design of the Christchurch Town Hall

The Christchurch Town Hall (New Zealand) was opened on September 30 1972. Disastrous earthquakes hit Christchurch in September 2010 and February 2011. Most of the CBD and the historic buildings were destroyed or damaged by the February event, including much of the Town Hall complex. The City Council in November 2012, resolved to restore the entire building but at the time of writing there remains uncertainty. The intention of this paper is to put on record the history of the Christchurch Town Hall design in case it does not survive the political after-shocks of the earthquakes. With the building's future now in jeopardy it seems appropriate to set out the process that led to this unique design, acknowledge the many contributors, outline its research base, the innovations in predictive technology employed, the evaluation of its acoustical properties and the learning that flowed from it.

Two plus Four: Revisiting a diplomatic masterpiece that paved the way for German Reunification

Transcript of the Talk given by Julius Georg Luy at the Christchurch Town Hall on November 25, 2010, as part of the EUCN annual conference "European Integration at 60: Progress,Problems, Perspectives."

Unbuilt Sixties: The Unsuccessful Entries in the Christchurch Town Hall Competition

The completion of the Christchurch Town Hall in 1972 marked the end of a process which had begun in 1964 with a national competition, the largest and most prestigious of the post-war era in New Zealand and one of the major architectural events of the 1960s. Although Warren and Mahoney's winning design has assumed a prominent place in New Zealand architecture, unsuccessful designs by among others, Pascoe & Linton; Lawry & Sellars; Austin, Dixon & Pepper; Gabites & Beard and Thorpe, Cutter, Pickmere, Douglas & Partners, are virtually forgotten. These designs deserve to be better known since they offer an invaluable insight into the range of architectural approaches being employed during the mid sixties. Standing apart from the short listed designs is Peter Beaven's more widely published entry, which was singled out by the jury as being especially meritorious. The paper will examine unrealised designs for the Christchurch Town Hall in the context of contemporary attitudes towards concert hall and civic centre design. Approaches ranged from the Miesian international modernism of Lawry and Sellars to the sculptural forms of Beaven's proposal in which influences as diverse as Aalto, Scharoun and Mountfort are strikingly integrated. The paper will also assess Warren and Mahoney's unbuilt civic centre design within the framework of the competition entries as a whole. Such unbuilt designs constitute an important, but largely invisible part of the architecture of the 1960s and deserve to be re-inscribed within in the history of the period.

The Hong Kong Cultural Centre halls: Acoustical design and measurements

The main performance spaces in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre comprise the Concert Hall, seating 2000 and the Grand Theatre seating 1700. The design of the former is derived from the Christchurch Town Hall which it develops in several important ways, while the latter is a lyric theatre/opera hall with several unique features which are described briefly in this paper. The Centre opened in 1989 following extensive commissioning measurements in the halls. Recently the opportunity has arisen to repeat the measurements using an improved technique in an attempt to document changes following a stage extension. Results from these measurements are compared with the earlier series in each hall. Marshall Day Associates, Auckland, New Zealand was responsible for the room acoustical design of these spaces. [The recent visit to Hong Kong was supported by the Acoustics Research Centre, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, and the Marsden Fund administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.]

On spatial variability of room acoustics measures

The use of high-energy measurement signals combined with digital multichannel recording and postprocessing leads to a highly efficient collection of impulse responses in concert halls. During measurements in two similar concert halls, the Christchurch Town Hall, New Zealand, and the Hong Kong Cultural Centre (both described in companion papers), responses were collected in all seats in some areas and in different positions in some single seats, in addition to the usual sampling of all areas. An omnidirectional loudspeaker source was used, and the measurements were repeated in several source positions. The distribution of various parameters in these areas are compared to the results for the whole hall. Based on this comparison the use of mean and standard deviation as measures of location and spread for the parameters is discussed, and the variation of parameters with varying source locations is demonstrated. Approaches toward the reduction of parameter sensitivity to insignificant details in the early sound field are briefly discussed and illustrated using the measured data.

Recent acoustical measurements in the Christchurch Town Hall Auditorium

Two significant changes have occurred in the Christchurch Town Hall during 1996-97: the original seats have been replaced with a new type and a new Rieger pipe organ has been installed behind the choir seats. A new comprehensive set of acoustic measurements has been made in the unoccupied hall. These are reported and compared in this paper with earlier measurements. A related study on the usefulness of C80 as a clarity measure in concert halls and which makes use of these results is reported in a companion paper. [This work is supported by the Marsden Fund administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.]

Early decay times in the Christchurch and Wellington concert halls, New Zealand

The concert halls in Christchurch Town Hall and the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand, have large suspended reflecting surfaces which provide early lateral reflections to listeners. One objective outcome of this is that measured early decay time (EDT) values are shorter than the reverberation time. EDT values for these two halls published in the book, Auditorium Acoustics and Architectural Design (Spon/Chapman & Hall, London, 1993) are now known to be significantly in error, due to a software fault in the signal analysis program used. Corrected diagrams including the EDT are presented as well as a brief discussion of sound decay in these halls.

Applications of recent work on design criteria for ensemble in arena concert halls

Recent work which established the acoustical conditions for ease of ensemble on stage [A. H. Marshall, D. Gottlob, and H. Alrutz. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 64, 1437–1442 (1978)] has been applied in two designs for arena stages. The first design has been constructed in the existing Christchurch Town Hall [A. H. Marshall, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 65, 951 (1979)]. A set of surfaces based on the reported work was installed above and around the stage in May 1978. At the first concert following, critics noted the excellence of ensemble playing and a questionnaire to the orchestra, which previously had expressed some difficulty with ensemble, elicited an overwhelmingly favorable response. The second part of the paper reports progress on the design of the stage and “ensemble” surfaces in the Wellington Town Hall. General conclusions about the design of arena stages for orchestral use are drawn.

Acoustical design and evaluation of Christchurch Town Hall, New Zealand

The Christchurch Town Hall (2650 seats), which was opened in 1972, was designed primarily as a choral symphony hall. Reverberation time (125 Hz–2 kHz) in excess of 2.2 s with the hall full, is provided by a volume of 20 500 m3 and generally reflective surfaces. The basic design aim, audibility of early lateral reflections, is achieved by large interior oblique reflectors which hang in the space from the walls at about half-ceiling height. They are, thus, within and independent of boundaries of the reverberant volume. The resulting temporal and spatial distribution of energy in the reflection sequences gives this hall an unusual combination of reverberance, envelopment, and clarity. Measurements of T60, T15, EDT, and integrated early energy are presented and discussed in explanation of the combination of reverberance and clarity experienced in the hall.

Some preliminary acoustical considerations in the design for the proposed Wellington (New Zealand) town hall

The preliminary design for Wellington Town Hall, New Zealand, is an evolution from the successful design for Christchurch Town Hall. It includes, however, the results of a decade of experimental work on the effects of early lateral reflections on listener preference for orchestral music. The basic form of the auditorium remains an arena, roughly elliptical in plan, and containing within its boundaries large suspended surfaces to ensure appropriate reflection sequences. The acoustical design objectives include the combination of a long reverberation time, “envelopment” due to the lateral reflections and clarity as encourtered in Christchurch Town Hall. Advances in the provision of diffusion and understanding of the acoustical requirements for ensemble are included in the proposals. The experimental work and other advances in knowledge relating to concert hall design are reviewed, and their application in the design of Wellington Town Hall is discussed.

Aspects of the acoustical design and properties of Christchurch Town Hall, New Zealand

The Christchurch Town Hall (2650 seats) is the major hall in a complex which includes a 986 seat theatre. It was opened on 30 September 1972 and was designed primarily as a choral symphony hall. Reverberation time (125 Hz to 2 kHz) in excess of 2·2 seconds with the hall full is provided by a volume of 20 500 m 3 and reflective surfaces. The basic design aim, provision of relatively strong early lateral reflections, is achieved by large interior oblique reflectors which hang free from the boundaries of the reverberant volume. The resulting early lateral energy and long R.T. gives the hall a combination of reverberance, envelopment and clarity. The paper gives an account of design aims and studies including a ray tracing computer program with an interactive graphics output. Measurements of T 60, T 15 and integrated early energy have been carried out in the hall. Echograms and other measured data are presented. Clarity has been measured by a speech intelligibility test with the Hall empty except for 40 participants. With T 60 at 500 Hz 2·7 seconds, the intelligibility was better than the Peutz criterion for public address systems.

Aspects of the acoustical design and properties of Christchurch (NZ) Town Hall

The Christchurch Town Hall (2650 seats) is the major hall in a complex which includes a 986 seat theater. It was opened on 30 September 1972 and was designed primarily as a choral symphony hall. Reverberation time (125 Hz–2 Khz) in excess of 2.2 s with the hall full is provided by a volume of 20 500 m3 and reflective surfaces. The basic design aim, audibility of early lateral reflections is achieved by large interior oblique reflectors which hang free from the boundaries of the reverberant volume. The resulting early lateral energy and long RT gives the hall a combination of reverberance, envelopment, and clarity. The paper gives an account of design aims and studies including a ray‐tracing computer program with an interactive graphics output. Measurements of T60, T15, integrated early energy and binaural cross correlation have been carried out in the hall. Echograms and other measured data will be presented. Clarity has been measured by a speech intelligibility test with the hall empty except for 40 participants. With T60−2.7 s. at 500 Hz the intelligibility was better than the Peutz criterion for public address systems.

Evolution of a concert hall: Lateral reflections and the acoustical design for Wellington Town Hall

The evolution of research and acoustical design objectives which have been the basis for the preliminary design phase of the Wellington (NZ) Town Hall is reported. The undoubted success Christchurch Town Hall with four years of evaluation in intensive use, and with the progress of research together indicated the acoustical refinements and modifications to be included in the Wellington Town Hall design. There has become a growing recognition of the fact that the directional properties of early reflections are as important in the perception of sound in concert halls as their temporal distribution. Marshall's early papers on the importance of lateral reflections led to a comprehensive study on the effects of early reflections on subjective acoustical quality in concert halls by M. F. E Barron at Southampton. The study includes details of masking of both high‐ and low‐frequency orchestral sound in lateral reflections, integration time, quantitative prediction of “Spatial Impression,” image shifting, and the difference limen. Results of other studies are presented which give complementary results in listener preference for relative levels of lateral and frontal energy. While model studies and in situ evaluation have shown that conventionally fan‐shaped halls cannot usually provide the preferred levels of envelopmental energy, acoustical experience in Christchurch has shown that in halls of this type, the preferred relative levels of lateral sound are achievable. Specific design features are presented including the use of longitudinally oriented “Quadratic Residue Diffusers” which provide multiple lateral reflections. The result is an unpresidented design proposal.