Performance Halls Research Articles

Owner/builder perspective of the impact of trains on performance halls for Benaroya Hall, Seattle

The Seattle Symphony began planning for a new concert hall in early 1987 at a location near their existing venue, the Seattle Opera House. During funding negotiations with The City of Seattle in 1992, the City made it clear that they wished to have the new facility located in their downtown core area. They offered a site that had many added challenges. These included being in the flight path of Sea-Tac International Airport; being alongside the Metro transit tunnel which is to accommodate light rail; being located in the heart of a very active city; and finally being located directly above the twin track railroad tunnel that runs north to south through the city center. In order to achieve the desired acoustical quality for the 2 500-seat main auditorium and 540-seat recital hall, not only for performances, but also for digital recording, a number of innovative design and construction techniques were required. These ranged from a massive foundation slab above the tunnel, to construction of a vibration isolated building within a building, which is supported on natural rubber isolation bearings. The challenges of designing and constructing this unique building will be presented.

Air pedestal diffusion method of introducing air silently to spaces.

In recent years the drive to air condition performance halls with greater energy efficiency and comfort has brought supply air terminals closer to the ears of audience members. Introduction to North America of the European approach of air volume displacement has required development of silent air terminals that coordinate with audience seating and allow greater efficiency and comfort. Artec Consultants Inc. has worked with leading seating manufacturers to develop pedestal chair supports and other floor mounted devices that function as terminals for air supplied from underfloor plena. The Ford Centre in North York Ontario incorporates one such design, as will several additional facilities in North America and Europe that are presently under construction. Completed facilities have met the design noise levels. This paper will examine the recent development of these terminal devices and discuss the benefits and complications associated with their implementation.

Early Stages: Theatre in Ontario 1800-1914

Early Stages, the eighth theme study in The Ontario Historical Studies Series, explores in six thoughtful essays the evolution of Ontario theatre from 1800 to 1914. Historian J.M.S. Careless sets the stage with a background study titled “The Cultural Setting: Ontario Society to 1914”, in which he analyses the role played by “the growth of settlement, the rise of towns and cities, constant improvements in communications by land and water, and the sweep of technological advance”, all of which created the conditions which made theatrical activity viable. Leslie O’Dell chronicles the activities of the regimental theatrical troupes which, between 1815 and 1870, provided the garrison towns of Kingston, London, and Toronto with a major source of entertainment. Robertson Davies surveys the theatrical menu offered audiences, reminding us that “the hopes and the fears and the unfocused terrors of our forebears show through the lace curtains of their plays as they do not always show through their novels or their poetry”. In upholstered productions of Shakespeare, costume dramas, melodramas, comedies old and new, farces, and operas grand, light, and bouffe, Ontario entertainment proclaimed at once its bourgeois prejudices and its kinship with the age. The bulk of theatrical performances were provided by touring companies, and Mary M. Brown casts a knowledgeable eye over the circuits, proprietors of local theatres, itinerant actor-managers, and the stars, native and foreign, who were at the heart of the system. Gerald Lenton-Young, in a remarkably well-researched and informative piece, ventures into the neglected field of variety, which, in the early decades of this century, serviced in Toronto an audience five times larger than that of the legitimate theatre (183,000 weekly capacity as compared with the legitimate theatre’s 35,000). His account of the puppet shows, panoramas, menageries and circuses, minstrel acts, dime museums, burlesque and, latterly, vaudeville extravaganzas offers a welcome antidote to the pervasive overemphasis by historians on Canada’s legitimate theatre. The volume’s final study, Robert Fairfield’s record of Ontario’s major theatres and performance halls over a 140-year period, is statistically satisfying, yet wonderfully readable. We come away with a solid sense of construction costs, architectural styles, the size and seating arrangements of auditoria, the depth, breadth, and height of stage areas. Even sanitary facilities (or, more often, the lack of them) are not overlooked.

Computer graphics visualization for acoustic simulation

Computer simulations can be used to generate the spatial and temporal data describing the acoustical behavior of performance halls, but typically the analytical results are difficult to assimilate and compare. By using computer graphics to display the multi-dimensional data, substantially greater amounts of information than that conveyed by standard techniques can be communicated to the designer. This allows designs of different acoustical spaces to be tested, evaluated, and compared.An example comparing the acoustical behavior of three different concert halls demonstrates these techniques and allows for the simultaneous assimilation of much of the information necessary to evaluate the acoustical nature of a space. The use of three-dimensional images, color, animation and abstract representation allows for the comprehension of the complex results of a scientific simulation. Specifically, the simultaneous display of particular icons familiar to the discipline enabled the simultaneous presentation of up to twelve parameters.From a more general point of view, the procedures demonstrate how computer graphics can be utilized for the portrayal of multi-dimensional time dependent data. The visualization techniques are potentially useful for the display of three-dimensional vector fields in many scientific and design applications.

“Transition loss” From the practice room to the concert hall

The acoustical characteristics of music practice facilities are compared with those of some performance halls available at a university campus. Glaring quantifiable differences are observed between the practice spaces and performance spaces in terms of size, shape, reverberation, and interior construction schemes. Furthermore, the Perceived acoustical qualities of three performance spaces studied also vary greatly from each other, one being popularly referred to as “very reverberant and muddy,” another “dead,” and a third, “good.” The physical differences observed are presented, and their effect on the performance of music rehearsed in the small practice facilities and performed in the larger auditoria considered via subjective reports made by performers and listeners. These observations are further supplemented by an account of strategies employed by performers in adapting production to suit the different spaces, to compensate for the “transition loss” incurred in going from the practice room to the concert hall.

Montreal Festival Fever

From 22 May to 4 June Montreal hosted two important theatre festivals: the 16th Festival québécois du jeune théâtre and the first Festival de théâtre des Amériques. In all, the festivals offered some 24 different shows, close to 100 performances, and more than 400 artists at work in a dozen performance halls, outside stages, workshops and panels. Six special events were planned to complement the festival activity: a conference of women in theatre in the Americas called The Next Stage, organized by Rina Fraticelli and Joanne Gormley; an International colloquium on theatre criticism organized by the Jeu collective; a series of morning seminars about the work being presented; a workshop on the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed with Brazil’s Augusto Boal; a workshop with Théâtre Repère from Quebec City; and a special program of films about theatre and culture at the Cinémathèque québécoise focusing on the work of the Living Theatre. Attendance at Festival shows exceeded 95 percent, surpassing even the most optimistic expectations of festival organizers Marie-Hélène Falcon and Jacques Vézina. Audiences flocked to see not only Quebec and Canadian theatre, but work from Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and the United States that rarely Is performed north of the 49th parallel.