Boston Symphony Hall was the first designed with an acoustical consultant

Evidence

The architects for Boston Symphony Hall at the turn of the twentieth century had wisely decided to copy the “shoebox” shape that was the basis of so many concert halls in Europe. Still, there are many important decisions to be made: How high should the ceiling be? What material should be chosen for walls and seats, and should statuary be included to scatter sound? The architects retained Wallace Clement Sabine as an acoustical consultant; this was a first in the history of acoustics. Sabine made several recommendations; the architects mostly accepted the adjustments. Significantly, they lowered the ceiling from the original design; Sabine said the statuary would not matter that much. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2573

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the book’s broader theme of how reverberation time (Sabine’s discovery) governs room acoustics.

Related

• Wallace Clement Sabine founded the science of architectural acoustics in 1895 (similarity 0.83)
• Even the father of acoustics could not predict a hall’s sound before completion. (similarity 0.80)
• Fan-shaped concert halls discourage early side reflections and tend to fail acoustically. (similarity 0.78)