Bricks, mortar, and some pretty high tech

BY PAUL DWYER ’83

THE ZANKEL MUSIC CENTER is chockablock with technol-

ogy, some of it obvious, some less so, and some invisible to the casual visitor. First, it’s really three buildings—concert hall, classroom and office area, and mechanical wing—each set on its own foundation. This isolates vibrations and prevents sounds from spreading into other areas.

Each wall is a hero sandwich:

Two layers of drywall, then insula- tion and airspace cover a concrete

IT’S REALLY THREE BUILDINGS—

CONCERT HALL, CLASSROOM AND OFFICE AREA, AND MECHANICAL WING—

EACH SET ON ITS OWN FOUNDATION.

core, with the same layers repeated on the other side. The wall joints between the wings are lined with sheaths that allow slight independent movement. Windows are triple-paned and 1 inch thick, and doors weigh as much as 700 pounds each. The result is a series of acoustic “bubbles,” allowing a lecture to be clearly heard scant feet away from a drum practice.

TUNING THE CONCERT HALL

A concert hall is a lot like a giant musical instrument, and the way sound waves are reflected or absorbed can make or break the listening experience. By adjusting the Ladd Concert Hall's proportions and materials, the Zankel’s architects and acousti- cians succeeded in making it neither too “bright” nor too “dead” acousti- cally. And the hall can be fine-tuned for a soloist to a large symphony, for acoustic or electric music, for perform-

ers onstage or in the orchestra pit, and so on. Concertgoers will immediately notice the constellation of faceted wooden acoustical panels high overhead. Most panels are fixed, but two rows can be lowered to stage level and tilted, with a hand-held joystick controller or from catwalks in the fly- space. Two portable “orchestra shells” can unfold, accordionlike,

SPRING 2010 SCOPE 23

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