The technical tours are planned to inform and educate.
The tours are available to all attendees.  Fees and pre-registration apply.
Purchase an Individual Ticket through Online Registration

19th Century and Contemporary Performance Venue Architecture:
A tour of the Academy of Music and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Date: Saturday, May 15
Time: 9:00 to 11:00 AM
Offers: 2 AIA/CES LUs
Cost: $40
Location: the Academy of Music, Stage Entrance, Locust St between Broad & 15th

Photo courtesy of the Kimmel Center	Photo courtesy of the Kimmel Center	Photo Courtesy of Vitetta Group,Restoration Architects
The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts houses Verizon Hall. www.Kimmelcenter.org	The Kimmel Center is built in the shape of a stringed instrument, a violin or cello.	The Academy of Music  Philadelphia Orchestra's home from 1900-2001. www.academyofmusic.org

On this tour, we will see the evolution of theater design and construction from the 19th Century, as exhibited in the Academy of Music, to the recently completed Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The differing design requirements of opera, symphony, theatrical and ballet productions will be explained. The state-of-the-art theatrical construction of each venue will be explored in our behind the scenes tour. The recent, extensive renovations to the Academy stage house will also be examined.
 
When it opened in January, 1857, the Academy of Music was hailed by a correspondent of The New York Daily Tribune as “a lyrical and dramatic institution comparable in all points to the largest and most complete in Europe”. The 2,800-seat opera house cost $200,000 to erect. It served until 2002 as the home of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Currently, the Pennsylvania Ballet and The Opera Company of Philadelphia are resident in the Academy and it hosts touring Broadway productions.
 
When it opened in January, 2002, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts was greeted much more cautiously by local and national architecture critics. The Center contains the 2,500-seat Verizon Hall, the new home of the Philadelphia Orchestra and of the Philly Pops; the 500-seat Perelman Theater, a flexible venue for dance, theater and chamber music and home of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and of Philadanco; and a variety of ancillary catering and meeting spaces. It cost over $350,000,000 to construct.

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Verizon Hall
The first step toward creating good acoustics in any concert hall is to eliminate extraneous noise—including traffic noise and sirens, the subway, boilers, elevators, fans, drinking fountains, and hundreds of other noises. One way this was accomplished was to rest Verizon Hall atop 225 rubber isolation pads which help absorb vibrations from the Broad Street Subway. Once the noise has been eliminated, the sound of music is free to be heard with all its nuances intact.

Verizon Hall was designed in the shape of a stringed instrument—a violin or cello—with no straight lines or squared angles. After the basic design was established, certain acoustic features were added, including retractable curtains that absorb sound and reduce reverberation (most often used for amplified concerts), a series of doors along the sides of the hall that can be opened or closed to change the power of the sound and reverberation, and a large canopy above the stage with sound-reflecting panels that can be raised and lowered to affect the hall’s overall sound, as well as the way in which the musicians hear one another.

Engineering equipment throughout the Kimmel Center rests on coils that help absorb vibrations, eliminating extraneous noise.

What it all Means
The ideal sound in a concert hall should have a combination of strength, impact, punch and fullness, with lows that are not too weak, highs that are not too powerful, and a balance between clarity and reverberance. Under perfect conditions, the musicians and the conductor can hear the music exactly as the audience hears it, with no distancing, delay or echo.

Verizon Hall's acoustics are fully adjustable to accommodate a broad range of musical characteristics. By adjusting the curtains, doors and canopy, the best acoustics can be achieved for anything from a single harpsichord to a rock band, from a solo flute to a large-scale orchestral work with a chorus.

Perelman Theater

The 650-seat Perelman Theater is a multi-use recital hall/proscenium theater. A unique 75-foot-diameter turntable stage transforms the Perelman Theater from an intimate recital hall with outstanding acoustics to a proscenium theater with a deep stage, complete fly-loft and orchestra pit. First level theater seats maybe lowered and retracted to create flat seating for cabaret and theater in-the-round, as well as for experimental performances.

Project for the Twenty-First Century
The 146-year-old Academy of Music is the oldest known continuously operating opera house in the United States. The building, constructed in 1857, was built using solid brick bearing walls and timber framed floors and roof. It has served for the last 147 years as Philadelphia's premier opera house and served for over a century as home to The Philadelphia Orchestra. The Project for the Twenty-First Century began in 1994 with three objectives: 1) improvements for the patrons; 2) improvements for the performers; and 3) operational improvements to the building. All of these improvements required significant changes and adaptations in order for the Academy of Music to meet or even come close to the technological advances normally included today in new performance halls and theaters.

The vast amount of work was completed during the summers of 1994 through 1999, with the final phase, called "Raising the Roof," completed in October 2002.

1994: Acoustical improvements of the auditorium doors, new parquet circle seating

1995: Underpinning of the stagehouse basement walls, installation of new mechanical, fire protection, and new electrical service to and within the building to the existing electrical panels

1996: Installation of a new steel supplemental roof structure over the auditorium ceiling, new air handlers in stage right and left mechanical rooms

1997: New stagehouse foundations and new wood stage floor, new on-grade Locust Street loading, new orchestra lift, new piano lift and upstage lift, new parquet seating, new theatrical lighting system new computerized theatrical lighting positions, new sound, video and communication systems

1998: New acoustical treatment applied to the rear wall and proscenium boxes in the auditorium, new decorative wall sconces on the main floor, conservation of the mural ceiling, painting of the interior of the house, reupholstering of all the seats, new ADA seating areas on the main floor and balcony, new front of house lighting positions

1999: New orchestra shell, new decorative main curtain, new lower lounge with concessionaire areas and new large toilet rooms, new coat check, rebuilding of the proscenium box front at the amphitheatre level

2002: Raising of the stagehouse roof ten feet, to accommodate modern theatrical lighting and rigging