Benaroya Hall
Encyclopedia
Benaroya Hall is the home of the Seattle Symphony
Seattle Symphony
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra's season runs from September through July, and serves as the pit orchestra for most productions of the Seattle Opera in addition to its own concerts...

 in Downtown
Downtown Seattle
Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared to other city centers on the West Coast because of its geographical situation: hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by the Elliott Bay, and on the south by reclaimed land that was once...

 Seattle, Washington, USA. It features two auditoria, the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, a 2500-seat performance venue, as well as the Nordstrom Recital Hall, which seats roughly 500. Opened in September 1998 at a cost of $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

120 million, Benaroya quickly became noted for its technology-infused acoustics
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...

, touches of luxury and prominent location in a complex thoroughly integrated into the downtown area. Benaroya occupies an entire city block in the center of the city and has helped double the Seattle Symphony's budget and number of performances. The lobby of the hall features a large contribution of glass art
Glass art
Studio glass or glass sculpture is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. Specific approaches include working glass at room temperature cold working, stained glass, working glass in a torch flame , glass beadmaking, glass casting, glass...

 by world-renowned artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur.-Biography:Chihuly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington. He enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound in 1959...

.

Benaroya Hall is named for noted philanthropist Jack Benaroya
Jack Benaroya
Jack A. Benaroya is a noted philanthropist and prominent civic leader in Seattle, Washington. He supports cultural, educational and medical groups with his donations...

, whose $15.8 million donation was the first and largest of many for construction of the facility.

The hall was designed by LMN Architects
LMN Architects
LMN is an architecture firm based in Seattle in the United States. The company was founded in 1979, and provides planning and design services to create convention centers, cultural arts venues, higher education facilities, commercial and mixed-use developments....

 of Seattle, and was awarded the National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...

 in 2001.

The building sits directly above the BNSF Railway
BNSF Railway
The BNSF Railway is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It is one of seven North American Class I railroads and the second largest freight railroad network in North America, second only to the Union Pacific Railroad, its primary...

 tunnel under Downtown Seattle that is the primary rail corridor for the city and adjacent to the Metro Bus Tunnel
Metro Bus Tunnel (Seattle)
The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, also referred to as the Metro Bus Tunnel, is a public transit tunnel that runs the length of downtown Seattle, from 9th Avenue and Pike Street to 5th Avenue S. and S. Jackson Street. Approved by Metro Transit in 1983, construction began in 1987. It was...

. The performance hall is insulated from the rumbles of the traffic in these tunnels and the streets outside the hall by floating on rubber pads which insulate it from the outer shell of the building. These same noise-insulation features would also serve to dampen the destructive effects of any prospective earthquakes.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK