MCMLXXVI - Maurice Abravenel Hall - Salt Lake City, Utah - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

Abravanel Hall, home to the Utah Symphony, is a landmark in downtown Salt Lake City. Built in 1976 and called Symphony Hall, it was renamed Abravanel Hall in 1993 for beloved Maestro Maurice Abravanel, conductor of the Utah Symphony for more than 30 years. Known for its acoustics, Abravanel Hall is one of the finest symphony halls in the country. The magnificent building is crowned with six 16 x 16 foot brass chandeliers with 18,000 hand cut beads and prisms of Bohemian crystals imported from Austria and Czechoslovakia, and is adorned with more than 12,000 square feet of hand-applied 24-karat gold leaf. Abravanel Hall was built as part of Salt Lake County's Bicentennial Celebration.

The hall is actually a concrete building within a brick building, and was designed by Dr. Cyril M. Harris to provide an environment of acoustic excellence. Harris was the acoustical consultant for the remodeled Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The hall is rectangular in shape, similar to some of the world's finest symphony halls, such as the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Symphony Hall in Boston. The stage was designed strictly for use as a concert hall, and has no proscenium - meaning that it is an extension of the audience. Cello and bass players are also encouraged to makes holes in the stage with their endpins, so that their sound resonates with the wood of the hall, and not just their instrument. To enter the hall, patrons must pass through sound lock corridors designed to isolate the concert hall from the noise and confusion of the lobby. Inside the hall, there are convex curved surfaces on the walls and ceilings. There are no perfect ninety degree angles in the hall, because of their effect on sound. Suspended from the ceiling are six 16 x 16-foot (4.9 m) brass chandeliers with 18,000 hand-cut beads and prisms of Bohemian crystals imported from Austria and Czechoslovakia. The lobby is four stories high, with a white oak and brass ceiling, and a 5,400-square-foot (500 m2) glass curtain or wall which covers much of the East face of the triangular-shaped lobby. The lobby itself is an architectural marvel due to its many tiers, the staircase that goes upwards and to the left along with the triangular shape of the enclosure, the gold leafing that covers all visible sides of the stairs and balconies, and the 30-foot-high (9.1 m) red blown-glass sculpture (The Olympic Tower, by renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly) that is displayed prominently in the middle. This piece was purchased in 2002, after private donors and the Salt Lake Organizing Committee raised the $625,000 Chihuly was asking for. The Olympic Tower was valued at $900,000, although Chihuly was willing to sell it at the lower cost under the agreement that it would stay at Abravanel Hall and that the public would be able to view it without attending a show.

Year of construction: 1976 Cross-listed waymark: [Web Link] Full inscription: MCMLXXVI

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Date Logged Log User Rating   03/14/2018 BFin visited it 05/09/2011 Mom the Cook & cashnhubby visited it

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