5 ms·
"Beside being absolutely hideous on the outside, there is no way that hall has good acoustics." The architects are the Swiss practice Herzog and de Meuron. Whi
by theoh 9y ago
"Beside being absolutely hideous on the outside, there is no way that hall has good acoustics."
The architects are the Swiss practice Herzog and de Meuron. While your criticisms of the acoustics may be totally valid, it's a feature of the building that the shape of the hall is unrelated to the exterior envelope. So HdeM's exterior style is orthogonal (in principle) to the acoustic question.
It's unfortunate (for architects) that that the ideal concert hall is a wood-panelled shoebox shape. A bit of experimentation (Scharoun, Gehry) is inevitable but if it's a travesty like you say, that's very bad.
- theoh 9y agoLooked into this a bit more. It seems like the debate comes down to "shoebox" vs. "vineyard": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineyard_style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineyard_style https://live.stanford.edu/blog/january-2013/note-vineyard-style https://live.stanford.edu/blog/january-2013/note-vineyard-st...
- azey47 9y agoAh, good to know the names for these. I'm very skeptical of the acoustics of the Vineyard style, having experienced the "incredible" acoustics of Walt Disney Hall personally on stage, and from the audience. However, I'll do some more reading on it. Sadly, it seems there's a lot of political pandering and lack of critical hearing (reviewers don't know what to listen for), so it can be hard to find reliable or useful reviews. Nothing can substitute attending a hall and listening in person.