Architecture
In 1899, Searles hired noted church architect Henry Vaughan, an architect he frequently hired for various projects, to design a concert hall for the organ to be located on property he owned adjoining the Spicket River. Probably no other building of this size has been built solely to house a pipe organ.
The exterior is brick in an Anglo-Dutch style, with an Italianate campanile and a gable with baroque volutes. The walls are over three feet thick with interior air gaps, making the building quite soundproof.
The hall is designed in a similar fashion to a church, having a cross shaped floorplan; a long central aisle ends at a stage in front of the pipe organ; including the organ, the hall is approximately one hundred feet long. Another aisle runs across the front of the stage area and out to the sides; this is seventy feet wide.
In the terminology of Christian church architecture, the nave is forty feet wide while the transepts extend to seventy feet, and the pipe organ is in the chancel.
There is a vaulted ceiling sixty-five feet high. Beneath the vault is an entablature whose cornice hides indirect lighting which illuminates and reflects off of the ceiling. There is also a catwalkwhere the vault of the ceiling meets the top of the walls. The total enclosed volume is over 300,000 cubic feet (8,500 m3), which gives a reverberation time of 4 seconds when the hall is empty.
The interior is designed in an English baroque style. It draws particularly from Christopher Wren's design for Church of Saint Stephan, Walbrook in London. The lower ten feet of wall surface are finished with dark oak paneling. The walls above that are plaster with brocade panels which in addition to their decorative appearance are placed to absorb excess reverberation. The floors are marble in an alternating color scheme of reddish-brown and gray.
Read more about this topic: Methuen Memorial Music Hall
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