Rice University – Shepherd School of Music

Houston, TX

Team

Ricardo Bofil, Taller De Arquitectura, Design Consultant; Barcelona, Spain
Kendall/Heaton Associates, Architect; Houston, TX
Auerbach + Associates, Theatre Consultant; San Francisco, CA

Project Description

In 1987 Rice University hired Ricardo Bofill to create a new music building that would draw together their scattered music program under one roof. The resulting grandly-scaled neoclassical building includes a 1000-seat concert hall, a 235-seat recital hall, a black box space for opera, an organ recital hall, and a rehearsal room that is sometimes used for recitals. The facility stands as one of the premier music education facilities of the Southwest.

The Stude Concert Hall accommodates full orchestra, chamber ensembles, and recitals by visiting artists. The main floor of the hall is broken up by a raised parterre and loose seating in side arms. An orchestra pit lift carved out of the front of the stage is used occasionally for large performances. A shallow rear balcony connects to side galleries that terminate in a seating terrace wrapping the stage. The terrace is used for choral seating when there is a large ensemble on stage; otherwise choruses perform from risers on the stage and audience sits in the terrace around the stage. The walls are lightly bowed plaster on masonry, with deep pilasters in the upper zone. Vertical-travel velour banners can cover the walls between the pilasters to reduce reverberation. The large clerestory windows at the side walls have double panes of glass separated by a 12″- thick airspace. The visual ceiling in the hall combines sculpted plaster elements with coffers built of perforated metal to link the upper volume of the hall to the lower. Front lighting is concealed within the coffers. The crown jewel of the complex, the Concert Hall has received universal acclaim from both performers and audience members for its stunning acoustics.

The Edythe Bates Old Organ Recital Hall seats 200 in a narrow room 70 feet high. The hall houses a French-style 75-stop Fisk/Rosales tracker organ. Choirs and chamber ensembles also perform in the hall. Adjustable velour draperies moderate the reverberation time from 6.5 seconds down to 2.2 seconds. Walls are a combination of well-sealed, painted split-face block, precast concrete pilasters and clerestory windows. Schroeder diffusers were added to the wall facing the organ to soften the high-frequency return to the organist.

The official construction cost conceals substantial donations of effort and materials by the contractor, Miner-Dederick. The remarkable quality of the finished building is a tribute to the collaboration of George Miner and Dean Michael Hammond with the design team.

Project Website