The much-anticipated 1962 opening of Philharmonic Hall, a gleaming pavilion in travertine and glass at New York’s Lincoln Center, turned out to be an acoustical disaster, with the sound lambasted by critics—and players flummoxed by an inability to hear each other.
The architecture firm Harrison and Abramowitz had to stand back as a parade of sound experts tinkered for years with the acoustics designed by Bolt Beranek and Newman. The auditorium was finally rebuilt in 1976 by Philip Johnson, following the edicts of acoustician Cyril Harris, to emulate the long, rectangular shoebox style of the widely- admired Boston Symphony Hall. The tinkering continued, though, with wood and glass devices added to the orchestra shell.
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