1891
Carnegie Hall
Dankmar Adler (1844–1900), William Burnett Tuthill (1855–1929)
Carnegie Hall in New York City, built in 1891, is considered to be an excellent venue. It seats 2,800, yet an orchestra can perform with no amplification at all. Its architect, William Burnett Tuthill, was a cellist and studied European concert halls for their acoustics, in addition to consulting with acoustic specialist Dankmar Adler.
It is easy to understand some of the problems they faced by thinking about two different situations. First, imagine a person giving a lecture in a big open field. As the sound moves away from the speaker’s mouth, it has to fill more and more volume, so the available energy dissipates quickly. However, there is no echo whatsoever.
Now imagine that you are in a closed space, like a racquetball court. All the walls are flat, smooth, and solid. The sound from the lecturer is contained within a finite space in this case, so you can definitely hear it. But the echo problem can make speech difficult or impossible to understand.
To create Carnegie Hall, acoustical engineers blended features from these two cases. Listeners benefit from “depth” to the sound. Depth is created when the sound from the speaker’s mouth or the musical instrument arrives via multiple paths, first via a direct line, and then other versions arriving quickly from reflections off the ceiling and side walls. Actual echoing is canceled out by the audience itself, heavy drapes, or acoustical panels that absorb sound at the back of the room. This translated to a long, narrow room with the orchestra at one end, rather than a wide room or a room that widened from the stage. In wide rooms, the sound energy dissipates like it does in a field and people in the back cannot hear.
To maximize the quality of a performance or event, engineers continue to make improvements, from giant stadium TV screens to retractable roofs.
SEE ALSO Parthenon (438 BCE), Tape Recording (1935), Retractable Stadium Roof (1963), Stadium TV Screen (1980).
Muziekgebouw Concert Hall, Amsterdam, uses some of the same principles of acoustic engineering as Carnegie Hall in New York City.