Performing-Arts Performance

Arts Centers Attuned to Acoustical Design, Community

by Elaine Schmidt

A number of educational institutions in the Midwest are building high-end, acoustically refined performance venues and arts centers to draw faculty, students and community members.

Exemplifying this trend are Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, Illinois’ North Central College and the University of Chicago. They are in various stages of building or planning acoustically sensitive, multiuse performance spaces within new arts centers.

Multipurpose halls, designed in the past to accommodate the basic needs of multiple users, have often proved to be the bane of performers. Jacks of all trades and masters of none, these halls were rarely acoustically friendly to the different needs of the musical performers and ensembles, theater troupes and opera companies that used them.

But this latest generation of multipurpose halls has benefited from advancements in the science of acoustics and careful attention to acoustic issues throughout design and construction. Spaces are being created that can be altered to suit the needs of performers.

A ‘Tunable’ Building

At Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, the main performance space in the $25 million John and Ruth Rhinehart Music Center is “acoustically tunable” to the need—rehearsal, lecture or performance—through a system of adjustable curtains that alter the reverberation time within the space.

“This is a working building, not just a performance hall,” says Dick Mynatt, director of business development of Auburn, Ind.-based Fetters Construction. “Students go there to practice, and groups go there to rehearse.”

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Mynatt says that to create acoustic separation between areas, some places have “five layers of drywall. There’s also more than 5 mi of acoustical caulking in the building.”

Voids were also created within the building to isolate the most sound-sensitive spaces from the rest of the facility. High-end millwork and polished-concrete floors give the space a refined look.

The project broke ground in 2005 and opened in fall 2007. The 119,000-sq-ft building houses a 1,600-seat concert hall and 250-seat recital hall, as well as practice rooms, rehearsal halls, recording studio and related facilities.

The hall is intended for community use as well, such as the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

“It’s also a magnet for students,” Mynatt says. “It will encourage students to stay in northwest Indiana rather than having to go away to study music. It will bring nationally and internationally recognized artists to Fort Wayne.”

Drawing the Curtains

Like the Indiana facility, the $30 million Wentz Concert Hall and Fine Arts Center at North Central College in suburban Chicago can be acoustically “tuned through the motorized extension and retraction of sound-absorbing curtains,” says Mike Hudson, the school’s project manager.

“Two massive sound chambers, one on each side of the stage and invisible to the audience, enhance the audio characteristics and allow sound to bounce off multiple planes as it is directed to the audience.”

The 57,000-sq-ft structure, which is one block from downtown Naperville, contains the 13,000-sq-ft, 605-seat concert hall; 1,600-sq-ft lobby; 2,500-sq-ft, 150-seat Madden Theatre; 1,400-sq-ft Schoenherr Art Gallery; 2,100 sq ft of music rehearsal space; and 7,500 sq ft of practice rooms and offices.

“To achieve a high level of acoustic quality, you have to ensure that your whole process is dedicated to that goal,” Hudson says. “You have to work together with the acoustic consultants and the entire project team to make sure that you’re all on the same page.”

Mirroring the Indiana facility, Wentz will have a community orientation, including a Nov. 15 grand-opening concert featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The hall will also host college performances and performances by local schools and groups.

“The center will be used about half the time by the college and half the time by the city,” says Rick Spencer, vice president of institutional advancement for the college.

The project, which broke ground in fall 2006, will have its grand opening this fall.

$80 Million Arts Center

Details are sketchy on the yet-to-break-ground Reva and David Logan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Chicago, but it, too, will have a community focus.

“This building is seen as a recruiting tool, of course,” says Eric Eichler, project manager for the university.

“But it’s also seen as something that will bring life to the community. There will not only be student groups using it but outside groups as well. We see it becoming a gathering place for the neighborhood, with its cafe and outdoor plaza.”

A design competition was held, and the winner was New York’s Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

The approximately $80 million project is nearing the end of schematic design and scheduled to break ground in September 2009, with substantial completion in June 2011.

The structure will house a 450-seat auditorium, envisioned at present as primarily a music venue with possibilities for theater, dance and opera. There also will be a 150-seat black-box theater, 100-seat studio theater and 125-seat film screening room.

The building is intended to be a cross-disciplinary center, with visual arts classrooms and studios as well as theatrical set and costume shops.

“This facility is designed to bring four academic departments, which currently exist separately, together into one building,” Eichler says.

The building will consist of two components: a high-rise tower intended to house studios, high-tech classrooms, seminar rooms and the like, and a sprawling, two- or three-story structure with a saw-tooth roof, which will house the performance spaces as well as academic and faculty offices.

Midway Studios, a relocated and rehabbed barn that was once the studio of sculptor Lorado Taft and is now a designated National Historic Landmark, will undergo a historic renovation as part of the project. A nonhistoric wing will be demolished to make room for the arts center.

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