The Public, the Concert Hall and the Theaterby William Rawn, FAIA

Based on a lecture given at the National Building Museum, Washington D.C. on January 16, 2002

Music Center at Strathmore

The Public, the Concert Hall, and the Theaterby William Rawn, FAIABased on a lecture given at the National Building Museum, Washington D.C. on January 16, 2002 (updated to January,2005)

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© William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc. 2005

One cannot address the issue ofperformance space without drawing upon the wisdomof Shakespeare, whose plays have inspired andgraced the stages of the most splendid — and themost makeshift — performance spaces throughoutthe world:

As in a theater, the eyes of men,After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,Are idly bent on him that enters next,Thinking his prattle to be tedious.

—From Act 5 of Richard II

There is one actor whose role need neverbe tedious, who does not need to speak in order tomove his audience: that is the space itself. Thearchitect is always aware that “after the well-gracedactor leaves the stage,” and the house lights beginto rise, the eyes of men and women come to rest ontheir architectural surroundings.

This is indeed a humbling reality for thearchitect.

Integral to the architectural surround is thesense of community, formed between the audienceand performers or between audience member andaudience member — all are brought together by ashared love for music and the stage. It is thearchitect’s job to create a space that will enhancethis experience to its fullest. For over 20 years, wehave focused on projects in the public realm:creating, strengthening, and celebrating the senseof community in our culture. At a deeper level, I wouldlike to think our practice has been simultaneouslycelebrating issues of democracy, meritocracy,opportunity and accessibility. I see our work as thesearch for a rigorous and sensitive design with thegoal of making concert halls and theaters asaccessible and democratic as any other buildingsin our culture without sacrificing any element ofexcellence.

In their response to issues of the publicrealm and issues of democracy and accessibility,however, concert halls and theaters are particularlydifficult buildings in our culture.

The Main Plaza at Lincoln Center (proposed)The Music Center at Strathmore

America’s response to the arts isexceedingly complicated. The pursuit of excellenceis a strong American value. The avoidance of elitismis an equally strong value. As everyone strives forexcellence in his or her own way, America is wary ofthose who consider themselves to have surpassedall others; one wishes for excellence withoutarrogance. The cultural battles over the NationalEndowment of the Arts serves as a reminder of howdifficult it is to find the balance between excellenceand American populism. Our effort on all ourarchitectural projects is to try to find that appropriatebalance. These issues are heightened when publicfinancial support is required. At the dawn of this new

century, the technical complexities of concert hallsand theaters mean that their costs are considerable.As a result, most of them require significant publicfunding. Lincoln Center has long been in negotiationswith New York City and State to fund its renovations.Kimmel Center, newly opened in Philadelphia, hadsubstantial city and state support for its construction.Strathmore Hall, our performing arts building inBethesda, MD, will be funded 50% by the State ofMaryland and 50% by Montgomery County, makingit totally publicly-supported. With such a financialstake, the public rightfully demands that the buildingprovide a direct response to issues of the publicrealm, to issues of democracy and accessibility.

How do these values of the public realm playthemselves out in a performance facility? The location

and siting of the building is a major component. Thenature of the performance space is important; itslobby and entrance is important, too. The imageryof the building is critical.

TO DESIGN THE CONCERT HALL AND THEATERIN AMERICA

Given the special character of l iveperformance, to design a concert hall or theater inAmerica is to confront five important designdilemmas: the dynamic connections between theperformance space and the outside world, intimacy

of the performance space, acoustics, size of theperformance building, and the design of the lobby.

· The dynamic connections between aperformance space and the outside world.Theaters seek to be places of imagination andsuspended disbelief. Concert halls are seen asplaces of contemplation and repose. Both areconsidered by many Americans as spaces whereone can withdraw from the hurly-burly of the realworld. Yet when you talk with a contemporarytheater director, writer, or composer, they oftenwant as direct an encounter and relationship withthat real world as possible. This dilemma neednot remain unresolved. Theaters and concerthalls can be both a part of the real world as wellas being a welcome respite from it.

Seiji Ozawa HallSeiji Ozawa HallThe Music Center at Strathmore

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· Intimacy of the performance space. Thereare two fundamental relationships at work inconcert halls and theaters: the dynamic betweenaudience and performer, and the dynamicbetween audience member and audiencemember. For the first relationship, one mustdesign the Hall to get people as close to thestage as possible. In a Concert Hall, one hasthe opportunity to surround the stage withaudience, in balconies or other configurations.The sense of audience members being close,and sometimes at the same level as the stage,forges a close connection with performer. Thesecond relationship (audience member to

audience member) is equally important. Part ofthe special quality of live performance is sharingthat experience with other people. The design ofthe halls should allow you to see your fellowaudience, see their faces, or as Theatre ProjectsConsultants observes, “see the whites of theireyes,” and not merely the back of their heads.In this way, a dynamic tension is created withfellow audience members that can be palpableand a powerfully positive experience.

· Acoustics. The concert hall — and to adifferent extent the theater — have acousticrequirements that obviously cannot be ignored.For the Concert Hall, balancing superioracoustics with the American pragmatic desirefor the audience to be as close as possible to

the stage is a fundamental challenge — one thathas been addressed in different ways over thepast 100 years. The acoustic imperatives ofconcert halls in late 19th century Europe, inLeipzig and later Vienna, led to the developmentof the “shoebox” form. This design has providedhalls with superb acoustics. In the early-1900’s,both the Boston Symphony Hall and New YorkCity’s Carnegie Hall were built, albeit with twodistinctly different shapes. Symphony Hall,designed by Charles McKim and the greatHarvard physicist Walter Sabine, re-created theclassic shoebox form. On the contrary, CarnegieHall was a fan-shaped hall that allowed more of

the audience to get closer to the stage. WhileCarnegie Hall has good acoustics, unfortunatelymany of the later fan-shaped halls suffered fromvery poor acoustics. Interestingly, the choice ofshape of the hall (box vs. fan) reflects not onlyacoustics but intimacy between audiencemembers (“seeing the whites of their eyes”): theshoebox form with its side balconies and sideloges at orchestra level often creates a strongerhuman connection than a fan shaped hall.

· Size of a performance building. Concerthalls and theaters have become very large.Theaters often have fly towers that are 80-feethigh; concert halls usually need 65- to 70-foothigh roofs to ensure sufficient acoustic volume.Back of the house spaces have expanded to

The Music Center at StrathmoreCarnegie HallBoston Symphony Hall

accommodate increasingly complextechnologies. Many such buildings are nowincluding educational spaces (classrooms) andnumerous rehearsal spaces. These trends raisethe direct architectural challenge of how to fitthis amount of volume on a site, and how toorganize such a large building mass. One caneither accept and celebrate the large size in asingular form, or break it up into separate piecescreating a “village” of smaller forms.

· Design of the lobby. When confined bylimited resources, it is increasingly difficult to

afford building lobbies that remain unused allday except during a performance. The architectis increasingly required to design a lobby thatcan have other uses at other times of the day.The design of a lobby has a major impact onthe quality of “community” generated by a facility.The use of glass is also an issue. Today a lobbycan have a transparency to emphasize its public,open and accessible qualities, or it can be leftmore enclosed like traditional lobbies of the 19th

and early 20th centuries. Our general work hasexplored ways of celebrating transparency andopenness through the careful use of glass:viewed from the outside at night, a glass wall toa lobby appears brightly lit, exciting, and full oflife, while during the day, unless carefullydesigned, the glass can look black and

foreboding from a distance. Viewed from theinside in daytime, the glass can framewonderful views of the landscape or city, whileat nighttime the glass can form a gloomy blackwall. Being thoughtful about these inside/outside, daytime/nighttime issues can engagethe public realm and welcome a broader publicto a cultural building.

EUROPEAN PRECEDENTS

In the 18th century, concerts began to beperformed in the private rooms of the grand housesof the very wealthy. Even today, Concert Halls

reflect that history. In the mid-19th century, somevery large concert halls were built; some like theCrystal Palace had great musical extravaganzas.Of course, churches had also always been morepublic venues for music. Classical music has alsohad a historic connection to outdoor settings, oftenbeing played outdoors in the gardens of the rich.Theater, on the other hand, evolved from a totallydifferent set of cultural experiences. It is from thestreet, definitely and defiantly “of” the city: put upfour poles and a canvas awning and one can perform.As such, theater became confrontational, oftenrevolutionary. While music had both a private andpublic (spiritual) roots, theater came from a verypublic venue. Today we have these two performingart forms, developed from two different culturaltraditions.

North Lobby at the Music Center at Strathmore ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance atWilliams College (under construction)

Babson College Theater and CampusCenter

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To understand the evolution of the ConcertHall, in 1989, following our selection by the BostonSymphony Orchestra to design a new Concert Hallat Tanglewood, I went to Europe to look at fourteenconcert halls, to understand their spatial andorganizational qualities. Larry Kirkegaard, ouracoustician and a natural-born teacher, met me onsuccessive weekends in Amsterdam and Vienna.He showed me specifically what made the shoeboxshaped halls acoustically so extraordinary. I drew,documented, and measured these halls. Moreimportant I “soaked in” the architectural qualities ofthese halls. The spatial and human qualities werethe focus of my study. Following are some

highlights from that trip, in the order that Iexperienced them:

At the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam,a shoebox hall in a surprisingly squarish-shapedroom, the audience seating literally steps down adozen rows directly onto the stage behind theorchestra. Audience and performer are inextricablyconnected.

At the Vredenburg Music Center inUtrecht, Netherlands, Herman Hertzberger, a notedcontemporary architect, designed the concert hallalong the main street of the city literally within ashopping mall. He wanted the hall to feel as closelyconnected to the city as possible. Consistent withthis philosophy, the audience surrounds the stage,

a quality about European venue design that beganto fascinate me.

At the Grosser Tonhallesaal in Zurich, arather grand space with a classic shoebox shape, asmaller number of people inhabit the balconiesoverlooking the sides and rear of the stage. TheStadt-Casino in Basel, a very undecorated hall, ina very Calvinist city, feels particularly intimate givenits size (1,448 seats).

The Schauspielhaus in Berlin, in a KarlFriedrich Schinkel-designed theater building that hadbeen bombed in World War II, was transformed in

1983 by the East Germans into a very fine concerthall acoustically. Bernstein first conducted there onChristmas Day, 1989, after the Berlin Wall camedown, and found it to be one of the finest Europeanhalls. Henry Kraut in Bernstein’s office immediatelycalled to urge me to visit the Hall.

Hans Scharoun’s Philharmonie in WestBerlin immediately has a very public quality, both inthe design of the hall and in the lobby with itscascading stairs stepping down from manydirections. Though not a traditional shoebox-shapedhall, by most accounts it has excellent acousticsand the audience completely surrounds the stage.Nearly 30% of the audience actually sits “behind”the orchestra. Here Scharoun’s big side walls actalmost like the side walls of a shoebox- shaped hall.

Berlin’s Philharmonie HallConcertgebouw, Amsterdam Vredenburg Music Center, Utrecht

(He likened these to the hillside vineyard walls ofItaly.)

Aldeburgh is a primeval fishing town northof London on the North Sea. Home of BenjaminBritten’s festival, Maltings Concert Hall has beenplaced in a renovated beer production building. Inaddition to its modest industrial ancestry, the theaterhas an informal, accessible warmth due to theexposed brick walls. The elegant contemporaryarchitectural detailing gives it sophistication. It fitsvery well into its fishing town setting.

Often cited as the greatest concert hall, theMusikvereinssaal in Vienna, with 1,680 seats, isa tall and very narrow space. The strong shoeboxshape and the very high ceilings are notable. Theloge boxes in the orchestra level provide an additionalembracing element not found in any other halls Ivisited: you see the “whites of their eyes” at the mainlevel of the Hall. In addition, the audience in the logeboxes is at the same height as the musicians onthe stage, further strengthening a connection ofperformer and audience. I sat in a loge box duringmy first concert there; it was an absolutelymemorable experience. Notable, too, is the naturallight in the Hall. The conventional wisdom thatconcert halls cannot have natural light was debunkedhere. One of course never forgets the caryatids whichappear to be the columns that are holding up the

side balconies. The half-columns holding up thebalconies at Ozawa Hall is a nod to the settledquality created by this “exposed structure” for thebalconies.

Returning to the United States, one mustpay homage to Symphony Hall in Boston, by mostaccounts the hall with the greatest acoustics in thiscountry. It is a shoebox-shaped hall but the audiencein the side balconies does not come anywhere nearthe stage like these other European halls. In fact,the stage is set behind a proscenium opening. Thereare 2,625 seats. It is extraordinary that CharlesMcKim, the architect, and Walter Sabine, the

Harvard physicist/acoustician, could achieve suchgreat acoustics in such a large space. This is anexample, if there ever is one, of an admirably closecollaboration of architect and acoustician.

SEIJI OZAWA HALL AT TANGLEWOOD

Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, thesummer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra,was the first concert hall we had ever designed. Iwas captivated with the Boston Symphony Hall,where the two side wall balconies are filled withpeople. From an orchestra level seat you can literallysee the whites of the eyes of people to the left andthe right of you. One is always conscious of theshared experience in the room. We carried that astep further in Ozawa Hall.

MusikvereinssaalMaltings Concert Hall Musikvereinssaal, Vienna

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In our design of Ozawa Hall we consideredessential questions of democracy and accessibilityas well as the acoustics. Tanglewood is anextraordinary site in the Berkshires in WesternMassachusetts. When we built this, we knew on aweekday that a family in a Winnebago from themiddle of Kansas or a CEO of a Fortune 500 companycould arrive and walk around the grounds for free,hear master classes being taught by some of theworld’s greatest musicians, and go to concerts andsit on the lawn for very little money. Tanglewood alsohouses a major music school educating young adultsand young professionals. The educational component

of the Music Center at Strathmore will follow thissame tradition.

Matching the acoustics of the great halls ofVienna, Amsterdam, and Boston was an excitingchallenge. The acoustical requirements for the hallwere critical, particularly for the students, who hadto be able to hear themselves and their colleaguesas clearly and vividly as possible. We were thrilledwhen Leo Beranek named Ozawa Hall as the 13th

best concert hall in the world in terms of acoustics,among the top 4 halls constructed in the UnitedStates, and among the top 4 halls in the world builtin the past 50 years.

For the building’s exterior form, we chose aroof form that emulated the soft hills of StockbridgeBowl. We had to make a 65-foot high roof fit into a

setting where the tallest building was just less than35 feet. Our idea was to make the roof curve, tocreate a basilica-shaped building with the “sideaisles”, or lobbies, stepping down to the ground. Wehave a barn door that opens up to lawn seating. Thatbarn door is often closed for more intimateperformances and for commercial recordings.Everywhere in the building we tried to emphasizethe democratic qualities of the space: everyone iswelcome, everyone can see in. The interior spacewas meant to emulate the ideas and values of a NewEngland meetinghouse. Others have seen diversereferences in it, but philosophically we were tryingto capture that fundamental New England simplicity

in an inventive way. And what is more democraticthan a New England meeting house? There is a sensethat the audience and the performers are all in aroom together, a single room for music, everyonecoming together for an evening of music. It is notabout us and them; not about audience andperformer; it is about everyone together. Anotherissue at Ozawa Hall was the openness andtransparency of the building. We were successful:from every seat in the hall you can see green treesor lawn. Even the custom-fabricated teak chairs showthat one can bring rigor to a design that is accessibleto a wide range of people.

I hope this sense of openness captures thegoals of democracy and accessibility. In the end itis really wonderful to see classes being taught and

Seiji Ozawa HallSeiji Ozawa Hall Seiji Ozawa Hall

students leaning over the balcony, watching a newconductor. That is what the building is all about.

Note: Seiji Ozawa Hall received an AIA NationalHonor Award for Architecture in 1995, an AIANational Honor Award for Interior Design in 2000,and was listed as the 13th best concert hall inthe world by Leo Beranek in Concert Halls andOpera Houses.

THE MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE

Rockville Pike is a major commercialboulevard, framed for many miles by retail andcommercial office spaces. It is also the front doorto The Music Center at Strathmore, the secondhome of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra anda major public educational facility for all ofMontgomery County (950,000 people). At this onepoint on the Pike, instead of parking lots and stripmalls, you see a rolling hillside, a wonderfullandscape, and an iconic manor house sitting highon a hill overlooking the Pike. Over the hill, awayfrom the Pike, is a bucolic site that has presentedan intriguing opportunity, an opportunity

augmented by a set of extraordinary public politicaldecisions.

The Music Center at Strathmore celebrates itsimportant cultural and civic role both by its buildingform and by its memorable connection to anextraordinary park-like setting. The undulating roof formof the building responds to the rolling hills of the site.Bold glass walls link the main Concert Hall Lobby tothis landscape. The glass Promenade leading to theConcert Hall with its café opens to special views of thegreen lawns at numerous locations.

Working with acoustician Larry Kirkegaard andtheater consultant Theatre Projects Consultants, wedesigned the building to celebrate music spaces firstand foremost. The Concert Hall’s curved roof formidentifies this music space with its high ceiling in therear sloping down to the lower ceiling above the stage.The Education Wing with its large rehearsal spaces isalso identified by another curved roof form. The overallundulating roof then connects these two separatedforms. Large glass walls highlight the many nighttimeactivities of the building in brilliant light. The building’s

The Music Center at Strathmore

stone façade accentuates the civic importance ofthe building for the County while its warm coloremphasizes its connection to the landscape.

Highlights include:

1. The sheer and taut quality of the stonewalls establishes a clear and primaryrectilinear order for the building. Thecurved roof reinforces the tautness ofthese forms.

2. The singular exception to purity of thisorganization of straight wall and

undulating roof is the curving form of thePromenade and Entry, which respondsto the steep topography of the site.

3. Careful use of clear and fritted glassallows the large expanses of glass tobecome a dynamic design element, bothfor daytime and nighttime conditions andfor views from outside and from inside.

The interior of the Hall has one primaryarchitectural design goal: to create a memorablespatial intimacy between audience and performer,

indeed creating a “Community of Music.” Here againthe audience can see the whites of the eyes of thepeople around, as the seating curves around the wallsall the way to behind the stage. This area behind thestage is public seating except during a choralperformance. Within the hall, you can see all thecurvilinear nature of the space. However, this facility isstill a shoebox shaped hall, as all the undulatingmaterial is acoustically transparent. The sound passesthrough the bronze mesh and wood grills and isreflected back out into the Hall. It comes back out in away that is analogous to the Boston Symphony Hall orSeiji Ozawa Hall. There are two important points aboutthe Hall’s interior:

1. The Hall, as a “Room for Music,” is marked byseveral design features: Very tall and sheerside walls accentuate the spatial tautness ofthe Concert Hall. These parallel side wallsdominate the space and accentuate theacoustic energy of the room.

2. A constant visual tonality is created by theclose color connections between the red birchwood walls, red birch floors and the bronzemesh that dominate the Hall. This tonalitycreates a strong sense of “vessel” for the room.

Exterior View of the Music Center at Strathmore The Music Center at Strathmore

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The Education Wing has its own soaringcurved roof and its prominent position on the streetfrontage on Tuckerman Road, a location which saysto the world, “this is a very important part of thebuilding.” Borrowing from major education/concertvenues like Tanglewood, (Boston Symphony) andRavinia (Chicago Symphony), the intense activitiesof the Educational Wing can help to influence thequality of performance in the Hall and help togenerate the sense of broad community involvementthat is so important to this building. With fourexpansive and dramatic rehearsal spaces, (two have40-foot high ceilings) and a host of other practicespaces connecting easily to the Concert Hall, the

Education Wing is given a prominence that isfundamental to its role as an educational focus forall the citizens of Montgomery County.

Eliot Pfanstiehl is the visionary andimpresario of Strathmore who had the wisdom tobring an educational center into the project; heforesaw the interaction between the excellence ofthe Hall and the accessibility of the educationalprogram to school children of Montgomery County.Douglas Duncan, the County Executive, has longbeen committed to this project, insisting on theproper balance of populism (the educational vision)and excellence (quality of design, quality ofmaterials). He has witnessed so many countiesfalling head over heels to build football stadiums;he understood the importance of building a premiercultural facility. John Gidwitz and Buddy Zamoiski

of Baltimore Symphony saw how Baltimore andMontgomery County could join forces with the stateof Maryland to make this building possible. ChuckLyons guided these forces at Strathmore with hiscolleagues Alan Mowbray, David Phillips and the lateMario Loiederman. Grimm + Parker Architects hasassisted our office, as Associate Architects,throughout the project.

RELATED PROJECTS

Over the past ten years, our office hasdesigned a number of Music and Theater spaces whichhave influenced (and have been influenced by) the

design of Strathmore Hall. Most are indoor; a few areoutdoor. All deal directly with issues of the publicrealm, issues of democracy and accessibility.

The new ’62 Center for Theater and Danceat Williams College will serve the College communityand the Williamstown Theater Festival and will includefour major venues: a 550-seat main Stage, a 250-seatFlexible Thrust Stage Theater, a 200-seat highlyflexible Studio Theater, and a very large DanceRehearsal space. Strategically sited along a majorstudent pedestrian way, the Center incorporates anexisting student pathway between a popular diningfacility and the rest of campus, providing a pathwaywhich allows for student interaction with the performingarts on a daily basis. Student lounges on multiplelevels have been located to promote interaction, team

’62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College(under construction)

Sorenson Theater at Babson College

building and spirit within the performing artscommunity. (Opening in 2005)

The Sorenson Theater bringsperformance into a broader public realm at BabsonCollege in Wellesley, Massachusetts. As part ofa student center, the Theater itself is an exceedinglyintimate space for 450 people and is part of thedaily life of the campus, just as central as the postoffice, the dining facilities, and the campusbookstore. Designed with wraparound balconies andside loge box seating, the Theater captures andmaximizes the immediacy of live performance andthe connection between audience member and

audience member. (Opened in 1997; 2000 HonorAward in New Architecture, United States Institutefor Theatre Technology)

The Forrestal-Bowld Music Building atPhillips Exeter Academy, a remarkablepreparatory school in New Hampshire, is locatedon the major quad directly across from Louis Kahn’sfamous library. To fit the building into the life of thecampus was challenging. In one of my most poignantmoments with a client, Kendra O’Donnell, theprincipal, said to me when we considered celebratingthe student in his or her own practice room, (muchlike Kahn did with his carrels at the library) “LookBill, these fourteen- year olds are wonderfullyaccomplished musicians. We do not need tocelebrate their accomplishments in the practice

room. Instead what we want to encourage andcelebrate is their work in ensemble, whether it’s withtwo students or four other students, or a wholeorchestra of 65 or 70 students.” We placed theorchestra space in the front of the building and madethe lobby into active space, central to the broader lifeof the buildings and the campus to celebrateensemble and to affirm Kendra’s specialunderstanding of the connection between music andarchitecture. (Opened in 1995; 1995 Honor Award,New York Chapter, AIA)

The Koka Booth Amphitheatre atRegency Park in Cary, North Carolina, serves athriving suburb of Raleigh that has grown from 5,000people to 85,000 people in 15 years. A city ofnewcomers, it is beginning to create its own specialcivic life. The Pavilion, one of the summer homes forthe North Carolina Symphony was designed to beboth an important civic and cultural space for Cary.Located on a lake, designed for orchestra, dance andtheater, the Pavilion joins with an arc-shaped buildingto create a large space able to hold 10,000 people.For example, it is the town’s gathering space on theFourth of July. The glass-roofed Pavilion is unlike mostoutdoor facilities, whose solid canopies create darkspaces during the day and, as I like to say, “gatherleaves and old coffee cups.” Our glass roof positivelyglows at night; and in the daytime is filled with light.

Music Building at Phillips Exeter Academy Amphitheatre, Cary, N.C.

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(Opened in 2001; 2001 Honor Award in Architecture,New England Chapter, AIA)

Boardinghouse Park in Lowell,Massachusetts is similar in its civic goal. It is afeasible performance space located on a canal inthe middle of an historic mill town. Built for thenational Park Service, this performance pavilion wasalso designed to be a marketplace and a gardenpavilion that could be used in many ways throughoutthe work week. We were very proud that PaulTsongas, who grew up in Lowell, chose this placeto first announce his candidacy for President in1992: the idea of a performing arts venue playing

an important civic role is what we care so muchabout.

The Performance Structure at the mainplaza at Lincoln Center allows the fountain plazato convert to performance space during the summer.We designed the necessary theater facilities,including stage, canopy, seats, ticket booth, andcafe/bar, to be movable, flexible, demountable, andtransportable. The Plaza makes important civicconnections to the City and to the constituent partsof Lincoln Center, giving focus to outdoor festivitieswithin an urban space. Opening to the Broadwayand Columbus Avenue entrance, the orientation ofthe Plaza stage invites visitors from the City intoPlaza activities and addresses the largest audiencearea available within the confines of the Plaza.

In Sonoma County, California, adjacent to theSonoma State University campus near Santa Rosa,the Sonoma County Concert Hall will be a year-round 1,400-seat concert hall and will serve as thehome for the Santa Rosa Symphony as well as theUniversity’s Music Department. A year-round facility,the rear doors open to a 3,000-10,000 seat lawnaudience area. Enclosed, used year-round it reflectsthe California connection of inside to outside with glasswalls dominating its eastern side (with views to therural landscape of the Sonoma hills) and uses thefour-sided entry courtyard as the central gatheringspace for the large complex.

The Community Performing Arts Centerat Seaside, a large outdoor performance venue inthe renowned “New Urbanist” Town of Seaside,Florida, will comprise a 300-seat studio theater whichopens onto a performance porch for large outdoorconcerts on “The Lyceum’s” central lawn. “ThePerformance Porch” provides a first-rate stage formusic, theater, lyric opera and film, and includes theconstruction of adjacent two-story arcades. Thedesign of the Performing Arts Center reflects the spiritof democracy engrained in the original Town of Seasideby providing it with several courtyards and numerouseducational and public buildings along both sides ofthe Lawn, including offices, classrooms, and housingfor performers. When constructed, the project will

Performance Structure at LincolnCenter Main Plaza (proposed)

Sonoma County Concert Hall Community Performing Arts Center atSeaside (proposed)

complete the central lawn of the town’s arts andeducational precinct.

This conceptual design for a new ArtsPrecinct at the University of Virginia creates acivic space analogous to but different fromJefferson’s Lawn with five arts buildings open to amajor hillside green. These buildings include a1,500-seat Performing Arts Center, a new MusicBuilding with a 300-seat Recital Hall, a 300-seatThrust Stage Theater, and a new Arts Library. TheHall will define a major entry to UVA’s main grounds,while the Music Building will anchor a corner of aNew Arts Precinct on Carr’s Hill. The Arts Library

will serve as an intellectual centerpiece to the ArtsPrecinct, housing stack spaces, individual andgroup reading spaces, and library staff work areas.

The Music and Theater Arts TeachingLaboratory at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology will contain three main teachingspaces which will strengthen the collaborationbetween the Music Department and the TheaterArts Department: a Choral Rehearsal Room, a BlackBox Theater, and an Instrumental Rehearsal Room.Located prominently on Massachusetts Avenue,the buildings are designed at an urban scale thatinteracts with the city. Large, transparent walls andluminous windows bring creative energy to thestreet, and celebrate the teaching spaces as placesof human gathering. The building will also contain

Music and Theater Arts Teaching Laboratoryat MIT (proposed)

UVA Arts Precinct Master PlanBoardinghouse Park, Lowell

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a Dance Rehearsal Room, a Theater Rehearsal Room,three Sectional Breakout Rooms, and ancillary “backof house” spaces.

* * *In addressing issues of democracy and

accessibility, these concert halls and theaters sharea focus on the public realm. Whether at Ozawa Hall,where rigorous design was matched by an attentionto the intimacy and informality of Tanglewood’ssetting, or Williams College, whose architectureencourages student interaction with the arts on a dailybasis, the goal is the same: to create and celebratethe sense of community in our culture. The Music

Center at Strathmore reinforces this notion throughits memorable spatial intimacy between audience andperformer. Our goal, from a cultural and civicstandpoint, is a hall capable of conveying every subtlenuance of performance expression while feelingaccessible and open to all. This should indeed be thecentral goal of any Concert Hall or Theater.

William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.101 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108tel) 617.423.3470 web) rawnarch.com