Ideational project of Janáček Hall
In Prague, there is not yet a fully satisfactory concert hall, although the first city of a nation so musically developed should, out of respect for its creation, possess a perfect reproduction hall. This fact prompted us to create the conceptual project of the Janáček Hall. The proposal summarizes in the building's design the following functions: philharmonic concerts, solo instrumental concerts, choral concerts, solo vocal concerts, voice bands, organ concerts, dance and pantomime theater, radio studio, recording studio, conference hall, and music publishing. For all these activities, the building has operational and organizational rooms. The design, therefore, is not content with merely solving the ideal and perfectly acoustic musical space but is based on the awareness of the relationship between individual music disciplines and addresses the operational and organizational problems. Just as the D 41 theater aims to concentrate Czech modern cultural life, the Janáček Hall should concentrate modern musical life. The Janáček Hall would gather performing musicians, conductors, composers, dancers, as well as the audience and music theorists. Thus, the Janáček Hall project is not only a meticulously devised acoustic study but also shows the real possibility of realizing such a concert hall. It finally reminds us that the city of Prague will have to deal with the construction of a large concert hall.
Idea. We want to create a concert hall whose construction would support the acoustic values of speech and music, whose design would give sounds a new expression and thus provide new developmental possibilities for poetry and music. We chose the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola as the basic elements of the arrangement of our concert hall. In designing the spaces, the ellipse and parabola often appear. The hyperbola has so far been more of an external phenomenon. By extending this curve to combine the parabola with the ellipse, we achieve acoustically correct coloring of the sounds. Reflection. The sound of these shapes was not fully utilized because sound spread mostly horizontally. Elliptical chambers, being the most intimate in shape, concentrated sound reflections at the foci, while in other parts of these spaces bands of sound attenuation were created. In the parabolic hall "La grande salle Pleyel" in Paris, although the sound spread was advantageous for the minor differences between direct and reflected sound rays, it also had the disadvantage that every murmur in the audience concentrated again at the focus of the parabola, where the performing artists were located. Hyperbolic surfaces support the dispersion of reflections, which is an acoustic advantage. — Proposal. By changing the horizontal direction of the axis of the main form—the paraboloid—into a vertical one, we gain its advantages and eliminate its disadvantages. If we add to this main shape the intimate ground plan of the ellipse, we then remove the disadvantages arising from this curve. The complementary shape would be hyperbolic. A hyperbolically complemented space would then assume the function of properly coloring the sounds. We placed the orchestra above at the focus of the parabola—the sound spreads into the auditorium directly downward after reflection, and the direct sound is subdued by the orchestra floor. Besides, the upper part of the dome is fitted with blinds of a certain shape, which serve to direct the reflection of sound from the orchestra directly down into the auditorium but capture murmurs from the audience and prevent them from concentrating in the orchestra. The blinds are movable and can be positioned so that reflection and absorption can be adjusted and controlled according to the type of sound. The blinds are placed along the circles of the rotating paraboloid. The control of these metallic blinds would be managed by a mixer using electrical equipment. The mixer booth would be soundproofed and would also serve other tasks of movable acoustics. Behind the orchestra, the choir would be placed. Another goal of this solution would be the unity of the audience, which would essentially form just one uninterrupted surface, undivided and undispersed on the ground floor, balconies, and galleries. This unity—oneness—of the audience has certain psychological advantages that also support the acoustic quality of the hall and allow for various placements of performing artists. The orchestra would be above, the soloists (for solo concerts) would be in the center under the orchestra, and the stage would be below. The movable acoustics would allow soloist performances to be perfectly acoustically realized, and the stage could thus be used for conversational plays or melodramas. In the second and third cases, the blinds in the upper part of the parabolic dome would be open. The dome would thus replace the open space. The front and middle rows would receive direct sound from the stage and from the performance, while the back seats would receive reinforced sound reflected from a wooden wall, such that the differences in sound paths would not exceed 16 m. For this purpose, the ceiling at the back of the hall would be suitably adjusted and also equipped with acoustic blinds. Metal tubes in front of these blinds would partially support sound dispersion. Unfavorable sound reflections from the side walls are eliminated in all cases, both by the shape of the hall and by the gallery protruding into space. Thus, the overall acoustics of the space would be guaranteed. Instead of the stage, a projection screen could be placed at the bottom, onto which colors complementing the musical mood could be projected (Skrjabin envisioned music accompanied by colors), or we also consider television for the audience that wants to observe the technical details of the artists' performances—the pianist's hands, the conductor's baton, etc.
Although these possibilities are already beyond the tasks of conventional concert halls, we have classified them according to the nature of the established opinion of the musical audience into the tradition of concerts. We have also kept in mind the further development of music and movement art.
The hall differs from a church and from a traditional concert hall. The freedom of expression for the listener is balanced by internal freedom. Spontaneous enthusiasm gives way to seriousness and deepening of musical feeling. The composition of the orchestra is then independent of the psychological measure of each
composition. Singers, speakers, and musicians would not have to adapt to the size of the space, since direct sound rays prevail. The disk at the bottom of the hall would be a mute stage; the invisible voices and songs in the orchestra would reveal abstract notions, such as joy, sorrow, irony, regret, conscience, etc., and movement on the stage would effectively contrast with these notions. By combining various visible (dance) and audible (speech, singing, and music) perceptions, the overall impression would deepen for the receptive listener. Moreover, the space could still be expanded with a gallery, as indicated in the ground plan V under the loge. It would extend the space into the shape of a hyperbola, as already mentioned in the introduction. Movability of the acoustics would also influence this space. In the rear part, the space could also be extended (ground plan V of the floor). Here there would also be amplifiers that would transmit sound to surfaces specially constructed so that sound rays would reflect off the dome of the parabola. Where the immediacy of sound matters, the sound would be directed through 7 strong metal tubes straight into the dome. Metal is a much better conductor of sound than air—speed of sound in metal is 5000 m per second—in air, it is 340 m per second. The tubes would also serve for lighting, which would be mounted on them. The surface of all surfaces would be smooth but without gloss, and their color would be light. This would positively influence the mood of the audience and their concentration, into which the lively flow of music would thus penetrate even more strongly. There would be no prior tuning of instruments before the audience; instruments would be tuned in the tuning room. Equipment of the hall. In the upper part, the hall has the shape of a rotating paraboloid with a slanted axis. The metallic and movable blinds are terminated with a horizontal ellipse and would form segments of circles of this paraboloid. Then the shape of the paraboloid would transition into a surface that would connect the dome (rotating paraboloid) with the form of an elliptical cylinder in the lower part of the hall. The connecting and elliptical part of the hall would be lined with light wood—linden. — The wood would be attached to the structure with strips of various sizes and lengths, irregularly positioned—to prevent surface vibrations. The seats would be upholstered to ensure that the difference between empty and occupied space did not stand out. Movable microphones would be distributed throughout the hall and classified into microphones for receiving high, medium, and low tones. The mixer in the sound booth would manipulate these microphones to ensure that the overall result corresponded to the direct natural sound. A room similarly equipped as the mixer room would be reserved for recording gramophone records.
Acoustic theory.
1. Reverberation.
The fundamental method of Sabine, evaluating acoustics according to the duration of sound, has been supplemented by other methods. According to Sabine, the duration of reverberation is determined by the well-known equation (...). However, it has been found that this duration of reverberation is different for speech, different for music, and different again for choral singing. All of this suggests the mobility of acoustics, which in our case is advantageously gradated by placing the orchestra above, soloists in the center, and speakers below.
2. Energy and absorption of sound.
The second question we sought to address was how to balance sound energy with wall absorption to benefit the acoustics for various uses of the hall. When Lyon speaks of the hostility of walls against sound, we have attempted to confront this "hostility" with the advantageous shape of the hall and movable acoustics.
3. Sound guidance.
The third problem arises from the theory of acoustics of ancient Greek theaters, where sound directed by reflection along the listeners diminishes in the atmosphere, and from the consideration of how to partially eliminate reverberation in a closed space in a similar manner. Each of these problems would require a more extensive discussion.
The disposition of the organ was resolved in consultation with Dr. Ladislav Vachulka.
Organs. Collaborated with Dr. L. Vachulka.
The organs in the Janáček Hall are to be organs in the true sense of the word, that is, instruments that create their unique sound through their expressive means and do not attempt in any way to imitate orchestral colors. In this pursuit of stylistic purity, it is necessary to remember that the organ style is a set of structural features arising from the specific anatomy of the instrument and the conception of this anatomy by the organ builder—with regard to the organ composers and performing artists. The technical style pertains to the manner in which the basic musical element—the tone—arises through resonance. One of the characteristic qualities of this tone is its timbre, which is a specific and typical sign of each instrument. A master instrument is a work of art that always bears the mark of individuality and is shaped by the personality of its creator. It primarily depends on the formation, which is exactly that artistic work. Organs, as keyboard instruments, have a dogmatically finished tone, singular for each instrument. This exclusive tonal rigidity and the possibility for the tone to resonate with a constantly equal strength correspond to the artistic focus of metaphysical conception, interwoven with symbolic use in temples, where organs fulfill the most essential requirements of the sound ideal in harmony with the mystical elevation of liturgical acts. Every organ builder must respect these associative connections when placing an instrument outside the temple—and especially in a concert hall—equipped with all the dynamic, timbral, and technical advances of contemporary organ building. Therefore, the sound concept of the new organs in the Janáček Hall will be addressed in the sense of the analogy that if the orchestra is the king in music, the organs are the pope in the hierarchy of instruments. The organ sound reached the most ideal stylistic purity during the Baroque period when organs were built with registers of all sizes and formed an organically unified whole. Even today, preserved instruments of Baroque masters captivate the receptive listener with their sound clarity, admirable intonation, and especially the silver brilliance of the full sound achieved through rich coloration of the instruments with high registers and full representation of harmonic series at appropriate mensurations in characteristic mixtures. And it is precisely the most fundamental aesthetic mistake of some modern organ builders to transfer harmonic registers from fundamental ranks because the questionable material savings are far from compensating for the sonic poverty of the instrument, which then cannot be saved by various cheap effects. Therefore, the disposition of the new organs in the Janáček Hall will be resolved on the principle of Baroque, using all the significant values of modern organ building. The main case with the pipes of two manuals and pedal will be placed above the stage and below the main protruding stage, where only a small case with the pipes of the third manual in blinds will be located near the focus of the rose of the hall. The console will be movable, since the electrical system allows this, as only electrical cables lead from the console to the cases. Similarly, a special case with pipes will be connected from the fourth echo manual, recessed into the ceiling on the opposite side of the hall, above the audience. Therefore, the console will have four manuals, each with 56 keys and 68 tones and a pedal, 69 sounding registers, in addition to technical registers.
Situation.
We have designed the Janáček Hall for a specific situation at the foot of Petřín on the axis of Smetan’s Bridge. We do not want to declare this location as ideal; it is advantageous primarily due to its position in perspective from the National Theatre and its proximity to the center of Prague. Our primary concern was to solve the organism of the concert hall newly so that it meets the perception of the visitor. The concert hall could be realized on any suitable construction site.
Idea. We want to create a concert hall whose construction would support the acoustic values of speech and music, whose design would give sounds a new expression and thus provide new developmental possibilities for poetry and music. We chose the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola as the basic elements of the arrangement of our concert hall. In designing the spaces, the ellipse and parabola often appear. The hyperbola has so far been more of an external phenomenon. By extending this curve to combine the parabola with the ellipse, we achieve acoustically correct coloring of the sounds. Reflection. The sound of these shapes was not fully utilized because sound spread mostly horizontally. Elliptical chambers, being the most intimate in shape, concentrated sound reflections at the foci, while in other parts of these spaces bands of sound attenuation were created. In the parabolic hall "La grande salle Pleyel" in Paris, although the sound spread was advantageous for the minor differences between direct and reflected sound rays, it also had the disadvantage that every murmur in the audience concentrated again at the focus of the parabola, where the performing artists were located. Hyperbolic surfaces support the dispersion of reflections, which is an acoustic advantage. — Proposal. By changing the horizontal direction of the axis of the main form—the paraboloid—into a vertical one, we gain its advantages and eliminate its disadvantages. If we add to this main shape the intimate ground plan of the ellipse, we then remove the disadvantages arising from this curve. The complementary shape would be hyperbolic. A hyperbolically complemented space would then assume the function of properly coloring the sounds. We placed the orchestra above at the focus of the parabola—the sound spreads into the auditorium directly downward after reflection, and the direct sound is subdued by the orchestra floor. Besides, the upper part of the dome is fitted with blinds of a certain shape, which serve to direct the reflection of sound from the orchestra directly down into the auditorium but capture murmurs from the audience and prevent them from concentrating in the orchestra. The blinds are movable and can be positioned so that reflection and absorption can be adjusted and controlled according to the type of sound. The blinds are placed along the circles of the rotating paraboloid. The control of these metallic blinds would be managed by a mixer using electrical equipment. The mixer booth would be soundproofed and would also serve other tasks of movable acoustics. Behind the orchestra, the choir would be placed. Another goal of this solution would be the unity of the audience, which would essentially form just one uninterrupted surface, undivided and undispersed on the ground floor, balconies, and galleries. This unity—oneness—of the audience has certain psychological advantages that also support the acoustic quality of the hall and allow for various placements of performing artists. The orchestra would be above, the soloists (for solo concerts) would be in the center under the orchestra, and the stage would be below. The movable acoustics would allow soloist performances to be perfectly acoustically realized, and the stage could thus be used for conversational plays or melodramas. In the second and third cases, the blinds in the upper part of the parabolic dome would be open. The dome would thus replace the open space. The front and middle rows would receive direct sound from the stage and from the performance, while the back seats would receive reinforced sound reflected from a wooden wall, such that the differences in sound paths would not exceed 16 m. For this purpose, the ceiling at the back of the hall would be suitably adjusted and also equipped with acoustic blinds. Metal tubes in front of these blinds would partially support sound dispersion. Unfavorable sound reflections from the side walls are eliminated in all cases, both by the shape of the hall and by the gallery protruding into space. Thus, the overall acoustics of the space would be guaranteed. Instead of the stage, a projection screen could be placed at the bottom, onto which colors complementing the musical mood could be projected (Skrjabin envisioned music accompanied by colors), or we also consider television for the audience that wants to observe the technical details of the artists' performances—the pianist's hands, the conductor's baton, etc.
Although these possibilities are already beyond the tasks of conventional concert halls, we have classified them according to the nature of the established opinion of the musical audience into the tradition of concerts. We have also kept in mind the further development of music and movement art.
The hall differs from a church and from a traditional concert hall. The freedom of expression for the listener is balanced by internal freedom. Spontaneous enthusiasm gives way to seriousness and deepening of musical feeling. The composition of the orchestra is then independent of the psychological measure of each
composition. Singers, speakers, and musicians would not have to adapt to the size of the space, since direct sound rays prevail. The disk at the bottom of the hall would be a mute stage; the invisible voices and songs in the orchestra would reveal abstract notions, such as joy, sorrow, irony, regret, conscience, etc., and movement on the stage would effectively contrast with these notions. By combining various visible (dance) and audible (speech, singing, and music) perceptions, the overall impression would deepen for the receptive listener. Moreover, the space could still be expanded with a gallery, as indicated in the ground plan V under the loge. It would extend the space into the shape of a hyperbola, as already mentioned in the introduction. Movability of the acoustics would also influence this space. In the rear part, the space could also be extended (ground plan V of the floor). Here there would also be amplifiers that would transmit sound to surfaces specially constructed so that sound rays would reflect off the dome of the parabola. Where the immediacy of sound matters, the sound would be directed through 7 strong metal tubes straight into the dome. Metal is a much better conductor of sound than air—speed of sound in metal is 5000 m per second—in air, it is 340 m per second. The tubes would also serve for lighting, which would be mounted on them. The surface of all surfaces would be smooth but without gloss, and their color would be light. This would positively influence the mood of the audience and their concentration, into which the lively flow of music would thus penetrate even more strongly. There would be no prior tuning of instruments before the audience; instruments would be tuned in the tuning room. Equipment of the hall. In the upper part, the hall has the shape of a rotating paraboloid with a slanted axis. The metallic and movable blinds are terminated with a horizontal ellipse and would form segments of circles of this paraboloid. Then the shape of the paraboloid would transition into a surface that would connect the dome (rotating paraboloid) with the form of an elliptical cylinder in the lower part of the hall. The connecting and elliptical part of the hall would be lined with light wood—linden. — The wood would be attached to the structure with strips of various sizes and lengths, irregularly positioned—to prevent surface vibrations. The seats would be upholstered to ensure that the difference between empty and occupied space did not stand out. Movable microphones would be distributed throughout the hall and classified into microphones for receiving high, medium, and low tones. The mixer in the sound booth would manipulate these microphones to ensure that the overall result corresponded to the direct natural sound. A room similarly equipped as the mixer room would be reserved for recording gramophone records.
Acoustic theory.
1. Reverberation.
The fundamental method of Sabine, evaluating acoustics according to the duration of sound, has been supplemented by other methods. According to Sabine, the duration of reverberation is determined by the well-known equation (...). However, it has been found that this duration of reverberation is different for speech, different for music, and different again for choral singing. All of this suggests the mobility of acoustics, which in our case is advantageously gradated by placing the orchestra above, soloists in the center, and speakers below.
2. Energy and absorption of sound.
The second question we sought to address was how to balance sound energy with wall absorption to benefit the acoustics for various uses of the hall. When Lyon speaks of the hostility of walls against sound, we have attempted to confront this "hostility" with the advantageous shape of the hall and movable acoustics.
3. Sound guidance.
The third problem arises from the theory of acoustics of ancient Greek theaters, where sound directed by reflection along the listeners diminishes in the atmosphere, and from the consideration of how to partially eliminate reverberation in a closed space in a similar manner. Each of these problems would require a more extensive discussion.
The disposition of the organ was resolved in consultation with Dr. Ladislav Vachulka.
Organs. Collaborated with Dr. L. Vachulka.
The organs in the Janáček Hall are to be organs in the true sense of the word, that is, instruments that create their unique sound through their expressive means and do not attempt in any way to imitate orchestral colors. In this pursuit of stylistic purity, it is necessary to remember that the organ style is a set of structural features arising from the specific anatomy of the instrument and the conception of this anatomy by the organ builder—with regard to the organ composers and performing artists. The technical style pertains to the manner in which the basic musical element—the tone—arises through resonance. One of the characteristic qualities of this tone is its timbre, which is a specific and typical sign of each instrument. A master instrument is a work of art that always bears the mark of individuality and is shaped by the personality of its creator. It primarily depends on the formation, which is exactly that artistic work. Organs, as keyboard instruments, have a dogmatically finished tone, singular for each instrument. This exclusive tonal rigidity and the possibility for the tone to resonate with a constantly equal strength correspond to the artistic focus of metaphysical conception, interwoven with symbolic use in temples, where organs fulfill the most essential requirements of the sound ideal in harmony with the mystical elevation of liturgical acts. Every organ builder must respect these associative connections when placing an instrument outside the temple—and especially in a concert hall—equipped with all the dynamic, timbral, and technical advances of contemporary organ building. Therefore, the sound concept of the new organs in the Janáček Hall will be addressed in the sense of the analogy that if the orchestra is the king in music, the organs are the pope in the hierarchy of instruments. The organ sound reached the most ideal stylistic purity during the Baroque period when organs were built with registers of all sizes and formed an organically unified whole. Even today, preserved instruments of Baroque masters captivate the receptive listener with their sound clarity, admirable intonation, and especially the silver brilliance of the full sound achieved through rich coloration of the instruments with high registers and full representation of harmonic series at appropriate mensurations in characteristic mixtures. And it is precisely the most fundamental aesthetic mistake of some modern organ builders to transfer harmonic registers from fundamental ranks because the questionable material savings are far from compensating for the sonic poverty of the instrument, which then cannot be saved by various cheap effects. Therefore, the disposition of the new organs in the Janáček Hall will be resolved on the principle of Baroque, using all the significant values of modern organ building. The main case with the pipes of two manuals and pedal will be placed above the stage and below the main protruding stage, where only a small case with the pipes of the third manual in blinds will be located near the focus of the rose of the hall. The console will be movable, since the electrical system allows this, as only electrical cables lead from the console to the cases. Similarly, a special case with pipes will be connected from the fourth echo manual, recessed into the ceiling on the opposite side of the hall, above the audience. Therefore, the console will have four manuals, each with 56 keys and 68 tones and a pedal, 69 sounding registers, in addition to technical registers.
Situation.
We have designed the Janáček Hall for a specific situation at the foot of Petřín on the axis of Smetan’s Bridge. We do not want to declare this location as ideal; it is advantageous primarily due to its position in perspective from the National Theatre and its proximity to the center of Prague. Our primary concern was to solve the organism of the concert hall newly so that it meets the perception of the visitor. The concert hall could be realized on any suitable construction site.
(editorially revised)
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