1900: Boston’s Symphony Hall, an acoustical marvel in its day and still regarded as one of the world’s great concert halls, opens with an inaugural concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Unlike most American concert halls, which tend to favor a wider, fan-shaped configuration, Symphony Hall was built along European lines — deep, narrow and high. The architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White modeled the Boston hall after Leipzig’s Gewandhaus (which was destroyed during World War II).
But the architects also did something unprecedented: They hired Wallace Clement Sabine, a young assistant physics professor from nearby Harvard, to act as acoustical consultant. For the first time ever, scientifically proven acoustical principles were applied to concert-hall design. On the basis of Sabine’s work, the hall was built using brick, steel and plaster, with wooden flooring the only soft material used.
The side balconies are narrow to avoid trapping sound, and […]
Original post by Tony Long
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