• Kirkegaard Associates converts 1928 swimming pool into a 280-seat recital hall

• July 16, 2007

The transformation of the 1928 historic Curtis Pool Building at Bowdoin College, into a 280-seat state-of-the art recital hall was recently celebrated at the Brunswick, Maine, campus by faculty members, alumni, students and friends.

Architectural acoustics firm Kirkegaard Associates teamed with Boston-based design architect William Rawn Associates and Connecticut-based theatre consultants, Theatre Project Consultants to complete the $15 million renovation.

Originally designed by New York architects, McKim,Mead and White, and almost a century after the pool’s construction, a vision by college leaders to complement the school’s current musical performance spaces has allowed this significant Beaux Arts building to stand tall and support its new calling. A warm, light-filled recital hall; bolstered by a high-ceilinged rehearsal room and nine practice rooms; and supported by a green room that doubles as a recording studio; dressing rooms; and an airy lobby. In effect, a versatile space perfect for small- and medium–sized musical performances.

Whether those performances comprise a single soloist, a chamber music group, a chamber choir or a wind ensemble, the Kanbar Auditorium housed within the Studzinski Recital Hall provides a beautiful, lively sound with both warmth and clarity.

The audience enters the recital hall at a promenade level, and then descends into the raked seating bowl that allows excellent sight lines for every member of the audience. The audience is flanked by curved wooden walls that lean back just enough to prevent sound being trapped between them. The upper volume of the hall opens to the historic walls of the swimming pool. The new plaster on these walls is applied directly to the masonry to ensure a rich bass response.

The swimming pool’s plaster ceiling was removed to capture all the volume under the roof, allowing longer reverberation and accommodating louder performers. An acoustically transparent perforated metal ceiling maintains a clean, finished look overhead. A curved wood reflector over the stage helps performers hear themselves, while other curved reflectors above the perforated metal ceiling blend and direct the sound to ensure clarity. The removal of the old plaster ceiling left the hall vulnerable to rain noise – a new, secondary roof applied over the historic roof keeps the hall well isolated from environmental noise.

On each side of the promenade within the recital hall, five pylons create a sense of intimacy, reinforcingthe enveloping curve of the seating bowl. The sound-transparent pylons are covered with metal mesh concealing acoustic banners that are capable of being raised or lowered to meet program requirements. Even with the banners stored, the pylons prevent the sound sustained in the upper volume from becoming harsh. The pylons also filter the sunlight streaming through the windows on each side of the hall. A new second pane of laminated glass complements the historic windows for improved isolation from exterior sound.

Another feature found behind the stage and at the back of the hall are wood grilles with irregularly spaced slats designed specifically to avoid unwanted sound reflections. The grilles conceal operable curtains and banners that can be exposed or stored to tune the acoustics of the hall to a particular performer.

Instrumental to the successful renovation was a new one and one-half storey building which connects the old swimming pool / new recital hall to an adjacent gymnasium. Placed within this new “connector” are six practice rooms; three more practice rooms are built within the gymnasium, with concrete caps resting on their masonry walls to protect the musicians from the noise of basketball players on the wood-floored gymnasium above.

The lower floor of the connector also holds all of the mechanical equipment which operates the hall’s geo-thermal cooling system – a ground water loop which provides chilled water to the building in an environmentally friendly fashion. Also, inherent in the design is a system popular in Europe which is fast becoming the mainstay in the United States: the delivery of cool air from a plenum below the seating.

Kirkegaard Associates also held the responsibility for the audio/video system design. The loudspeaker system in the new recital hall is designed to be a high quality left-center-right system augmented by portable front-fill loudspeakers and in-fill loudspeakers serving the upstage side galleries and choir balcony.The main speakers are rigged to winches so that they can be raised above the ceiling reflector for unamplified events.

The system also includes a mobile recording system that can be set up in the Green Room to record events in the recital hall. Audio and video connections in the Rehearsal Room, directly behind the recital hall, allow the performers to be able to view as well as hear the events on stage.

Acoustics designer Joseph Myers commented, “The room is gorgeous to look at, and the sound matches it. Strings, winds, and voices are especially beautiful, and the sense of connection between the stage and the audience is just magical. We’re enormously proud of it. It’s exciting that the International Music Festival has made such good use of all summer long – we love to see our halls busy.

”Kirkegaard Associates’ project team for Bowdoin College was led by Principal Consultant, Joseph W. A. Myers; Senior Consultant Jonathan Darling and Consultant Joanne Chang was responsible for the Audio-Video Systems Design; and Senior Consultant Terry Tyson directed the control of sound and noise isolation. The project also benefited from the invaluable contributions of Eric Rosenberg and Jake Ament.