Bogtrotter
Senior Member
Indeed, that's why I said 'renowned'- not 'best' 
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Jack Diamond to Design Montreal Concert Hall
- Thread starter AlvinofDiaspar
- Start date
TonyV
Senior Member
Diamond's Montreal hall is a shoebox. Dimensions are classic, and the wall material is really hard, so I know that the acoustic result will be a good one.
Repeating myself, but the majority of the other concert halls going up now, or recently arrived on the scene, are turning away from the shoebox, and are favouring the vineyard "terraced" layout, and I love those halls so much. Berlin's (1963) was the trailblazer. Two major fixes have turned it into a great hall. Los Angeles, Copenhagen, and innumerable Japanese cities have vineyard-style halls, to varying degrees of acoustical success. The Tokyo one (Suntory) is regarded as really excellent, as is the Copenhagen one. Soon to open: Helsinki, Kansas City, Paris, and Hamburg. They all said "naah" to the shoebox design. Well, actually the Helsinki one is a hybrid, and one can argue that it is basically rectangular.
The sole other shoebox hall of 2011 is in Reykjavik and it has opened to acclaim.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Bill Littler's review:
Sep 16, 2011
MONTREAL—When Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall opened its doors, Sept. 13, 1982, more than a few Montrealers doubtless turned an envious shade of green. The situation now, 29 years later, has come close to being reversed.
Last Wednesday the Maison Symphonique de Montréal celebrated its grand opening at the Place des Arts, providing the Montreal Symphony Orchestra with the first real home in its 77-year history. Sometimes it pays to wait.
We know more than we did back in 1982 about building a home for a symphony orchestra. When the board of Massey Hall announced what was initially known as New Massey Hall, it talked itself, with the urging of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, into believing it could build “the finest concert hall in the world†with a seat count of close to 3,000 (the actual number turned out to be 2,813).
Experience subsequently demonstrated that the round shape of the hall, prescribed by architect Arthur Erickson, would conspire with its large size against that goal.
If anything, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra has suffered even more than its Toronto counterpart since the opening of the Place des Arts' Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, an even larger venue, in 1963. Designed as a multi-purpose facility, it, too, frustrated its resident symphony orchestra's ability to project sound with optimal visceral impact.
Roy Thomson Hall has since addressed its problem through a multimillion-dollar renovation, reshaping and reducing the volume of its interior under the supervision of the acoustical firm Artec, but although substantial improvement was achieved, the hall remains acoustically limited by its size and shape.
When the Quebec government turned to Artec to set parameters for Montreal's new home for music, the New York-based firm proposed a smaller size and a traditional shoebox shape. That essentially is what the Toronto-based architectural firm Diamond and Schmitt — the same firm responsible for Toronto's highly praised Four Seasons Centre — has built.
Over the course of two happy days I heard a variety of classical and popular music in the new hall, beginning with the opening concert pairing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with a sequence of pieces by Canadian composers: the late Claude Vivier's “Jesus erbarme dich†for soprano and a cappella choir, the latter directed by Tafelmusik's Ivars Taurins, Gilles Tremblay's “Envol: Alléluia†for solo flute, played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's Timothy Hutchins, and Julien Bilodeau's “Qu' un cri élève nos chants!,†the latter commissioned by the orchestra and receiving its world premiere.
Not surprisingly, when I asked music director Kent Nagano later about his orchestra's first experience making music in its new home, he enthused: “We couldn't be more delighted. This hall has been a dream for nearly 35 years We were hoping for a good hall, but once adjustments are made we believe it will be a superb hall.â€
Those adjustments are a feature of Artec halls, enabling, through movable overhead canopies, retractable draperies and associated features, the adjustment of the acoustical environment to meet the needs of different kinds of music.
It takes time for a hall's users to find optimal settings, which is why Artec's team of specialists, headed on this project by Tateo Nakajima, are contracted to work with Nagano and the orchestra for the coming year.
“We have been playing in a hall with almost no tone and no sound,†the maestro explained. “So there is a tendency for the orchestra to overplay. We have given four performances in the new hall now and we have already come a long way.â€
Nagano points out that although the budget for the new hall was generous — the usually cited figure of $266 million represents the cost including operations and maintenance for the 30 years in which it is to be managed by the Quebec government's private partner, SNC-Lavalin (the actual construction cost amounts to less than half that figure) — the budget was nevertheless much smaller than that of such other recent high-profile concert venues as Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
“So we decided to build the hall from the inside out, putting as much money as possible into the inside space.â€
Lead architect Jack Diamond has come in for criticism for the building's still unfinished exterior but the handsome, 2,100-seat interior, with walls sheathed in blond Quebec beechwood, represents an understandable functional priority. And that money has surely been well spent.
Sep 16, 2011
MONTREAL—When Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall opened its doors, Sept. 13, 1982, more than a few Montrealers doubtless turned an envious shade of green. The situation now, 29 years later, has come close to being reversed.
Last Wednesday the Maison Symphonique de Montréal celebrated its grand opening at the Place des Arts, providing the Montreal Symphony Orchestra with the first real home in its 77-year history. Sometimes it pays to wait.
We know more than we did back in 1982 about building a home for a symphony orchestra. When the board of Massey Hall announced what was initially known as New Massey Hall, it talked itself, with the urging of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, into believing it could build “the finest concert hall in the world†with a seat count of close to 3,000 (the actual number turned out to be 2,813).
Experience subsequently demonstrated that the round shape of the hall, prescribed by architect Arthur Erickson, would conspire with its large size against that goal.
If anything, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra has suffered even more than its Toronto counterpart since the opening of the Place des Arts' Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, an even larger venue, in 1963. Designed as a multi-purpose facility, it, too, frustrated its resident symphony orchestra's ability to project sound with optimal visceral impact.
Roy Thomson Hall has since addressed its problem through a multimillion-dollar renovation, reshaping and reducing the volume of its interior under the supervision of the acoustical firm Artec, but although substantial improvement was achieved, the hall remains acoustically limited by its size and shape.
When the Quebec government turned to Artec to set parameters for Montreal's new home for music, the New York-based firm proposed a smaller size and a traditional shoebox shape. That essentially is what the Toronto-based architectural firm Diamond and Schmitt — the same firm responsible for Toronto's highly praised Four Seasons Centre — has built.
Over the course of two happy days I heard a variety of classical and popular music in the new hall, beginning with the opening concert pairing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with a sequence of pieces by Canadian composers: the late Claude Vivier's “Jesus erbarme dich†for soprano and a cappella choir, the latter directed by Tafelmusik's Ivars Taurins, Gilles Tremblay's “Envol: Alléluia†for solo flute, played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's Timothy Hutchins, and Julien Bilodeau's “Qu' un cri élève nos chants!,†the latter commissioned by the orchestra and receiving its world premiere.
Not surprisingly, when I asked music director Kent Nagano later about his orchestra's first experience making music in its new home, he enthused: “We couldn't be more delighted. This hall has been a dream for nearly 35 years We were hoping for a good hall, but once adjustments are made we believe it will be a superb hall.â€
Those adjustments are a feature of Artec halls, enabling, through movable overhead canopies, retractable draperies and associated features, the adjustment of the acoustical environment to meet the needs of different kinds of music.
It takes time for a hall's users to find optimal settings, which is why Artec's team of specialists, headed on this project by Tateo Nakajima, are contracted to work with Nagano and the orchestra for the coming year.
“We have been playing in a hall with almost no tone and no sound,†the maestro explained. “So there is a tendency for the orchestra to overplay. We have given four performances in the new hall now and we have already come a long way.â€
Nagano points out that although the budget for the new hall was generous — the usually cited figure of $266 million represents the cost including operations and maintenance for the 30 years in which it is to be managed by the Quebec government's private partner, SNC-Lavalin (the actual construction cost amounts to less than half that figure) — the budget was nevertheless much smaller than that of such other recent high-profile concert venues as Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
“So we decided to build the hall from the inside out, putting as much money as possible into the inside space.â€
Lead architect Jack Diamond has come in for criticism for the building's still unfinished exterior but the handsome, 2,100-seat interior, with walls sheathed in blond Quebec beechwood, represents an understandable functional priority. And that money has surely been well spent.