Kresge Auditorium - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Kresge Auditorium is an auditorium

Auditorium

An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...

building for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, located at 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

. It was designed by the noted architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...

, with ground-breaking in 1953 and dedication in 1955. Saarinen designed it in tandem with his MIT Chapel

MIT Chapel

The MIT Chapel is a non-denominational chapel designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen. It is located on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, next to Kresge Auditorium and Kresge Oval, which Saarinen also designed, in Cambridge, Massachusetts...

; the two buildings are separated by a "green," referred to by students as the "Kresge Oval." The ensemble is recognized as one of the best examples of mid-Century modern

Mid-century modern

Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes mid-20th century developments in modern design, architecture, and urban development from roughly 1933 to 1965...

architecture in the US. The building was named for its principal funder, Sebastian S. Kresge, founder of S. S. Kresge Stores (corporate predecessor of Kmart

Kmart

Kmart, sometimes styled as "K-Mart," is a chain of discount department stores. The chain acquired Sears in 2005, forming a new corporation under the name Sears Holdings Corporation. The company was founded in 1962 and is the third largest discount store chain in the world, behind Wal-Mart and...

) and the Kresge Foundation

The Kresge Foundation

The Kresge Foundation is a U.S. philanthropic private foundation headquartered in Troy, Michigan. The goals and aspirations of seven programs guide its grantmaking and investing. Those programs are Arts & Culture, Community Development, Detroit, Education, Environment, Health, and Human Services...

.

Though unassuming by today's standards, the buildings were part of an attempt to define MIT's social cohesion. The Auditorium was where MIT students and faculty could gather for formal events, the Chapel was intended for marriages and memorial; the green that stretches between the two buildings, in the tradition of early-American urban planning, was to serve as the setting for civic events. Though the campus has grown around the buildings, the essential features of this idea are still easily legible.

The auditorium is defined by an elegant thin-shell structure

Thin-shell structure

Thin-shell structures are light weight constructions using shell elements. These elements are typically curved and are assembled to large structures...

of reinforced concrete, one-eighth of a sphere

Sphere

A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...

rising to a height of 50 feet, and sliced away by sheer glass curtain wall

Curtain wall

A curtain wall is an outer covering of a building in which the outer walls are non-structural, but merely keep out the weather. As the curtain wall is non-structural it can be made of a lightweight material reducing construction costs. When glass is used as the curtain wall, a great advantage is...

s so that it comes to earth on only three points. Thin-shelled concrete technology was innovative for the times. The dome weighs only 1200 tons and is currently clad with copper. It was originally covered with smooth, bright, orastone which was then replaced with lead sheeting attached with stainless steel wires. In 1980, cracks were found in the supporting structure and the auditorium was closed immediately for repairs. Copper replaced the lead at that time.

Sitting on a circular red brick platform, the dome contains a concert hall (with seating for 1226 people), plus a lower level that houses a small theater (seating 204), two rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, offices, bathrooms, and lounges. The main stage is paneled with warm-colored vertical wood elements that echo the vertical glass panels of the building's facade. The concert hall also contains a Holtkamp

Holtkamp Organ Company

The Holtkamp Organ Company of Cleveland, Ohio is one of America's oldest builders of pipe organs. Founded in 1855 by G.F. Votteler, the company was passed on to the Holtkamps in 1931...

acoustic pipe organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, whose pipes visually resonate as a sequence of vertical elements of varying heights. The opening ceremony in 1955 featured that organ, including a piece of music that was commissioned for the event, Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

's Canticle of Freedom.

Every seat in the concert hall has an unobstructed view, since there are no interior supports for the overarching dome. Working with renowned acoustical architects Bolt, Beranek and Newman, architect Saarinen employed free-hanging acoustic "clouds" that absorb and direct sound, instead of a traditional plaster ceiling. These clouds also contain lights, loudspeakers, and ventilation

Ventilation (architecture)

Ventilating is the process of "changing" or replacing air in any space to provide high indoor air quality...

.

While standing on either side of the entry lobby

Lobby (room)

A lobby is a room in a building which is used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer or an entrance hall.Many office buildings, hotels and skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create the right impression....

, one can distinctly hear people on the other side speaking in as low a voice as a whisper

Whisper

-In fiction:* Whisper , fictitious character in the popular Fantasy RPG Fable* Whisper, a character created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond novel and film Live and Let Die* Whisper , a 2007 horror film...

. This so-called whispering gallery

Whispering gallery

A whispering gallery is a gallery beneath a dome, vault, or enclosed in a circular or elliptical area in which whispers can be heard clearly in other parts of the building....

effect is produced by the geometrical shape and hard surfaces of the space.

The first professional recording at the Kresge Auditorium was a performance by soloist James Stagliano on the French horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, playing Mozart's

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

4 Concerti for Horn, accompanied by the Zimbler Sinfonietta. The recording was made using a single Telefunken

Telefunken

Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...

microphone, positioned 10 feet from the concert platform. The performance was recorded on an Ampex

Ampex

Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence...

tape recorder, and released on LP under the "Boston Records" Label.

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External links