Structure
As the home of the Canadian Opera Company, the Four Season’s Centre for Performing Arts modestly highlights the importance of opera through its advanced acoustic technology. The horseshoe auditorium is a pod within the exterior shell of the building, and is structurally isolated to prevent sound penetration. The auditorium rests on massive reinforced concrete beams spanning at the same level as the orchestra pit. Underneath the beams are rubber pads which absorb shock, vibrations and sound waves, ultimately soundproofing the space from any interruptions caused by the subway line. Other less structural considerations are the undulating back-walls of the venue, which diffuse the sound throughout the auditorium by reflecting the sound waves back to the stage, accounting for about 90 percent of the audible sound for the audience.
Read more about this topic: Four Seasons Centre
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.
The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism?”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“I’m a Sunday School teacher, and I’ve always known that the structure of law is founded on the Christian ethic that you shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself—a very high and perfect standard. We all know the fallibility of man, and the contentions in society, as described by Reinhold Niebuhr and many others, don’t permit us to achieve perfection.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)