During the restoration, various vertical lifts and new handicapped seating areas were added to make the building more accommodating to different people with different uses and needs. Energy-saving systems were installed to improve the overall performance, while acoustic panels were replaced in the main auditorium to enhance the acoustics of the building.
In , the seating of the main auditorium was reduced to from the original seats to allow for more comfortable seating. The storage rooms were also converted into archive rooms to serve an educational purpose. The project also included exterior masonry restoration and reconstruction of the reflecting pool.
The main auditorium is designed in a The shape of the hall enables the audience members sitting at the back to have an auditory experience just as clear and instantaneous as those in the front. The parabolic ceiling panels, simple color palette, and plain interior wall finishes with no suspended sound reflectors also help to create a more intimate and distraction-free experience. This is why, it is considered to have extraordinary acoustics, save for the low reverberation time in the main auditorium.
During the restoration process, sound-absorbing wood wall finishes were replaced with sound reflective panels. New carpeting, that matched the original, was also added to the auditorium to increase reverberation.
Another magnificent architectural feature that strikes the senses is the reflective pool. It wraps around the exterior of the Mary Seaton Room, finishes the elliptical composition, and makes the transition between the actual building and the lawn. Initially, Eero Saarinen designed the reflective pool to be about three feet deep with a contoured bottom. This added a natural serenity to the site and made it a recreation space for the community.
However, a terrible accident caused the city of Buffalo to reduce the depth to one foot by adding large amounts of gravel in it. Soon after, a decision was made to fill the pool and turn it into a lawn which drastically changed the aesthetic of the Kleinhans Music hall. Therefore, during the restoration process in by HHL Architects, the reflecting pool was redesigned.
The pool that exists today is about 3 inches deep with a concave floor to give the illusion of a much greater depth. Sometimes, the pool water is also dyed black to facilitate the illusion and increase the reflectivity of the building. The design philosophy and concept inform the architecture of the entire building, be it exteriors or interiors. The sweeping lines, curved forms, and the reflective pool create a surrealist montage for the people to see and experience.
The Hall itself, however, was in tenuous shape, to put it mildly. Elmwood Music Hall, at the corner of Virginia Street and Elmwood Avenue, was a multi-purpose facility, hosting everything from concerts to sporting events. For the Pan-American Exposition of , a marvelous, but temporary, concert hall was built not far from the present-day Albright-Knox Art Gallery, known as the Temple of Music.
Though it was razed as scheduled after the exposition ended, memories of the Temple of Music still lingered and set the tone for dreams to come of a new concert hall.
At that time, the only permanent concert venue in the city was a multi-task arena known as the Convention Hall, originally built in as an armory at the intersection of Elmwood Avenue and Virginia Street.
The Hall was hardly pretty, but had a spacious stage, a modest balcony and an open main floor that accommodated about 1, patrons on moveable wooden chairs. However, the yellow-brick edifice, later known as Elmwood Music Hall, also had a not-so-secret other life: It hosted almost any kind of indoor event, including professional boxing matches and college basketball games. There were also practical problems, the most critical of which was the loud rumble of passing electric trolleys.
Indeed, when the great Enrico Caruso performed on May 8, , he became indignant and threatened to walk out in the middle of an aria. This interior view of Elmwood Music Hall, taken during a summer concert ca. At the same time, Buffalo strained to welcome touring recitalists, including Maurice Ravel, who performed in the ballroom of the Statler Hilton Hotel.
Clearly, the need for an appropriate concert venue was compelling. And as each new effort emerged to establish a professional orchestra in Buffalo, the lack of a fine concert hall was restated and rephrased in many news articles and concert reviews — lots of talk, lots of ink, but few results. Finally, it was a man from Michigan, Edward L. Upon his death in , he and his wife Mary Seaton right left their life savings for the construction of a new music hall in Buffalo. Some, like Edward H.
In fact, Baird was named chairman of the Kleinhans Committee. The Kleinhans entrusted the money for the construction of a music hall to the Buffalo Foundation, managed by civic leader Edward H. Letchworth left. The Kleinhans Committee was headed by Cameron Baird right. Such music hall shall be for the use, enjoyment and benefit of the People of the City of Buffalo.
Both issues generated intense debate and rivalry as the project emerged. And, to make matters worse, the project became more urgent when the city condemned the stalwart Elmwood Music Hall in February Undaunted, the Buffalo Foundation performed minor miracles almost every day. First, it reduced 26 possible hall locations to 13, and finally to just three, including Humboldt Park near the Museum of Science and Delaware Park near the Rose Garden.
At the time, the site was occupied by the Avery Mansion, which was purchased and razed by the city. In , the heirs to the estate of Mrs. Truman Avery offered the mansion to the city, and it was razed to make room for the new hall.
Western New York Heritage. Afterwards, the challenge became agreeing on the practical function and style of the new hall and finding an architect to design it. The latter became a briar patch of thorny opinions Letchworth described in detail. Realizing there were strong reservations about the Greco-Roman design styles under consideration, she convinced Letchworth and the planning committee to consider the modern and elegant work of Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen.
In addition to the main auditorium, the Buffalo Foundation decided that the grand design should also comprise a separate large recital hall the seat Mary Seaton Room and a smaller recital room, spacious enough to function as a rehearsal room the seat Mary Livingston Room. Moreover, the proscenium of the large concert stage would function as a theater pit, to be lowered or elevated as needed by electric power.
North Elevation photo Frederick Chopin statue West Elevation - Main Entrance Musical scale? Note steel reinforced concrete cantilevered roof. Kleinhans estate furnishings: Queen Anne style wing chair - Private collection C. The project also received funds from the Works Progress Administration. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has used the hall as its home since Kleinhans first opened.
The music hall was built between and designed by the Finnish-American father-and-son team of Eliel and Eero Saarinen in the International style. The predominant lines of the music hall both outside and inside are smoothly curvilinear and sweeping, suggesting not only the shape of a stringed musical instrument but the shape of music itself in its motion and flow. The design resembles the shape of a violin or cello with the two lobes of the instrument housing the larger and the smaller concert auditoriums in the building.
Thus, the shape of the structure suggests its function. A certain amount of contemporary architecture follows this practice Another example from Eero Saarinen's oeuvre is the TWA Building at Kennedy Airport, which resembles a bird's spreading wings. The curving shapes of the exterior, which faithfully reflect interior volumes, look forward to Eero's later architecture, while the clean lines and careful craftsmanship, evident on the interior, hark back to the elder Saarinen's devotion to Arts and Crafts ideals.
The east end facing Symphony Circle is mirrored in reflecting pools. Inside the music hall, the orphic form of the flaring, wood-paneled auditorium gives almost literal embodiment to Schelling's contention that architecture is frozen music. Although acoustically superb, the main performance hall is almost austerely plain, perhaps to keep the audience from being diverted from the music.
The Saarinens' concert hall quickly gained renown for its acoustical excellence and became a place of pilgrimage for architects and acoustical engineers from all over the world. From the earliest days of the Circle this site was home to a greenhouse and some dwellings of modest size until the early s.
At that time, Truman Avery purchased all the grounds bordering this quadrant 3.
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