Severance Hall
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Severance Hall is a major concert hall located in the University Circle district of Cleveland, Ohio and home to the Cleveland Orchestra.
Prior to the construction of Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra typically performed and recorded in the much smaller Gray's Armory or Masonic Auditorium in downtown Cleveland. As the orchestra became better known outside of Ohio, it quickly outgrew its housing at the Armory both in seating and scheduling, as the building was meant as a multipurpose venue. The orchestra twice had to arrange alternative concert locations on short notice due to a scheduling conflict with a poultry exhibition.
After much encouragement from Orchestra founder Adella Prentiss Hughes and then-current Musical Director Nikolai Sokoloff, plans for Severance Hall materialized using land donated from Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) and funds from public fundraising and local philanthropists. The conceiver and biggest funder of the project was industrial magnate and philanthropist John Long Severance, who donated $1 million towards development and named the hall after his recently deceased wife Elisabeth Dewitt Severance. Despite the Great Depression, construction began in 1929 and finished in 1931.
Designed by local firm Walker and Weeks, the building's external neoclassical architecture resembles that of their other Cleveland landmarks, such as the main Cleveland Public Library building. New York sculptor Henry Hering created a classic flavored art-deco pediment for the building. Inside, Severance Hall is a mesh of numerous styles: the main foyer is a mix of Egyptian Revival and Georgian, while the ceiling and pillars of the auditorium are elaborately decorated with silver-painted Art Deco trappings.
Severance Hall had acoustic problems upon its original opening. This is attributable to poor choice of reverberating materials to build the stage shell, the excessive use of velvet curtains, and the placement of the massive, 6,025-pipe Ernest M. Skinner organ. In the 1950s Musical Director George Szell replaced the shell entirely (creating the affectionate label 'The Szell Shell') to improve the acoustics. The result was a Modernist stage which visually clashed with the Art Deco auditorium. The organ was deactivated in the process.
In 1970 the drive-through underground entrance paved with tile was closed as the use of taxis and chauffeured vehicles declined. It was replaced with a restaurant.
Beginning in 2001, the Hall underwent an extensive two-year, $36 million restoration, winning the National Preservation Honor Award. The most significant aesthetic change was the replacement of the 'Szell Shell' with a new shell which combined the acoustical properties Szell sought, but with a visual style that harmonized with the rest of the hall. Other developments created a large underground lobby where the drive-though and restaurant once lay, opened a replacement restaurant in another area of the building, installed a female dressing room (one harpist had used her instrument case to dress in until then), restored the dormant organ, and refurnished the Art Deco designs.
Severance Hall was also featured in the 1997 Harrison Ford film Air Force One. The scene during the opening credits shows a night-time military raid on the presidential palace of the leader of Kazakhstan. Severance Hall was chosen to depict the palace. During the scene, several landmarks of nearby Case Western Reserve University are visible, including the Thwing Center (the student union) and the Dittrick Medical History Center.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Rosenberg, Donald (2000). The Cleveland Orchestra Story (1st ed.). Gray & Company Publishers. ISBN 1-886228-24-8.
- Severance Hall. Retrieved October 27, 2005.
