User:CascadeUrbanite/sandbox/Puget Sound region
Benaroya Hall[edit]
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| Address | 200 University Street Seattle, Washington United States |
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| Coordinates | 47°36′29″N 122°20′13″W / 47.608051°N 122.336948°W |
| Owner | City of Seattle |
| Type | Concert hall |
| Capacity | Taper: 2,500 Nordstrom: 536 |
| Construction | |
| Opened | September 1998 |
| Architect | LMN Architects |
| General contractor | Baugh Construction |
| Website | |
| www.seattlesymphony.org/benaroya | |
Benaroya Hall is a concert hall in Seattle, Washington, United States. The home of the Seattle Symphony, it features two auditoria: the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, a 2,500-seat performance venue, as well as the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, which seats 536. Opened in September 1998 at a cost of $120 million, Benaroya quickly became noted for its technology-infused acoustics designed by Cyril M. Harris, touches of luxury and prominent location in a complex thoroughly integrated into the downtown area. Benaroya occupies an entire city block in the center of the city and has helped double the Seattle Symphony's budget and number of performances. The lobby of the hall features a large contribution of glass art, such as one given the title Crystal Cascade, by world-renowned artist Dale Chihuly.[1]
Benaroya Hall is named for noted philanthropist Jack Benaroya, whose $15.8 million donation was the first and largest of many for construction of the facility.
The hall was designed by Seattle-based LMN Architects, who was selected by the symphony's board of directors on December 28, 1993; the board later selected Baugh Construction as the general contractor for the hall.[2] For its work, LMN was awarded the National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 2001. The structural engineer on the project was Magnusson Klemencic Associates.
The building sits directly above the Great Northern Tunnel, which carries the primary rail corridor through the city, and adjacent to the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, which has a station directly integrated into the building. The performance hall is insulated from the rumbles of the traffic in these tunnels and the streets outside the hall by floating on rubber pads which insulate it from the outer shell of the building. These same noise-insulation features would also serve to dampen the destructive effects of any prospective earthquakes.[3][4]
History[edit]
The site of Benaroya Hall, a mostly empty block bounded by University and Union Street and Second and Third Avenue, was majority-owned by Marathon U.S. Realty, a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Railway; a small portion, owned by Wright Runstad, was occupied by the Jones Building, a seven-story building originally constructed in 1926 by J.K. McDowall as the McDowall Building.[5][6]
The Seattle Symphony had used the Seattle Opera House, located on the Seattle Center grounds, as its main performance hall since the Century 21 Exposition was held on the grounds in 1962. However, the symphony began to look for a new site by the 1980s as the hall became overbooked due to demand from the symphony as well as its other tenants, Pacific Northwest Ballet and Seattle Opera; a renovation of the 5th Avenue Theatre was rejected due to economical and practical issues.[7][8] In April 1986, the Kreielsheimer Foundation donated a square block of property north of Seattle Center to the city under the stipulation of developing it for cultural or educational purposes within four years, requiring that the land be sold with proceeds donated to charity otherwise.[7] With that in mind, planning for a new hall on the site commenced in November 1987, with a preliminary design unveiled on May 25, 1988; designed by LMN Architects with acoustical input from Cyril M. Harris, the new hall would have seated 2,800 patrons, with 1,900 on the main floor and 900 on the surrounding balconies.[8]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Art". Seattle Symphony. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
- ^ Bargreen, Melinda (December 28, 1993). "Seattle Symphony awards hall design to local architects". The Seattle Times. p. E4 – via NewsBank.
- ^ "Hall Design". Seattle Symphony. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
- ^ Mitchell, Carole L. B. (1997). "Orchestrating a firm foundation for new Seattle Symphony Hall". Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. Retrieved May 21, 2017.
- ^ "City may swap high-park limit for park space". The Seattle Times. March 5, 1991. p. D3 – via NewsBank.
- ^ Lane, Polly (August 23, 1991). "Wright Runstad buys Jones Bldg". The Seattle Times. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
- ^ a b Balter, Joni (July 18, 1987). "City moves on new home for symphony north of Center". The Seattle Times. p. A9 – via NewsBank.
- ^ a b Bargreen, Melinda (May 25, 1988). "Sound design for symphony's home". The Seattle Times. p. G1 – via NewsBank.
External links[edit]
Category:Buildings and structures in Seattle
Category:Culture of Seattle
Category:Performing arts centers in Washington (state)
Category:Tourist attractions in Seattle
Category:Downtown Seattle
Aurora Village[edit]
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| Location | Shoreline, Washington, United States |
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| Coordinates | 47°46′33″N 122°20′39″W / 47.77594°N 122.34410°W |
| Opening date | April 5, 1960 |
| Closing date | 1993 |
| Developer | Backus Improvement Co. Continental, Inc. |
| Owner | Citicorp |
| Architect | John Graham & Company |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 |
| Total retail floor area | 530,000 sq ft (49,000 m2) |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| [1][2] | |
Aurora Village was an enclosed shopping mall located along State Route 99 (Aurora Avenue) in then-unincorporated Shoreline, Washington, United States. Opened in 1960 as the third mall in the Seattle metropolitan area (after Northgate Mall and Bellevue Square), its initial anchor tenants included J.C. Penney, Pay 'n Save, Lucky Stores, Ernst Home Centers, Woolworth, Klopfenstein's, and Foreman & Clark; later expansions added Frederick & Nelson and Nordstrom as tenants.[3]
Despite encountering early success, Aurora Village started to decline by the early 1980s as it struggled to compete with a renovated Northgate Mall as well as the then-new Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood. The mall passed through several owners in the late 1980s, each one planning to redevelop it, until it was foreclosed on by Citicorp in 1992 after Frederick & Nelson's bankruptcy derailed the previous owner's plans.[4] Citicorp hired an Edmonds-based developer to carry out the redevelopment, resulting in the mall's demolition in 1993; a power center featuring Costco[5] and The Home Depot[6] as anchor tenants opened on the site the following year.
References[edit]
- ^ "First Phase of Aurora Village Development Nearly Complete". The Seattle Times. April 5, 1960. p. 52 – via NewsBank.
- ^ "New Corporation Is Formed To Handle Aurora Village". The Seattle Times. October 9, 1960. p. 34 – via NewsBank.
- ^ Nogaki, Sylvia Wieland (April 24, 1995). "Aurora Village reborn". The Seattle Times. p. C1 – via NewsBank.
- ^ Alexander, Karen (March 23, 1993). "Developers set to renovate Aurora Village". The Seattle Times. p. C6. Retrieved April 29, 2022.
- ^ "New life for old shopping site". The Seattle Times. July 1, 1994. p. B3 – via NewsBank.
- ^ "Home Depot may rise from heap of F&N rubble". The Seattle Times. August 6, 1993. p. E1 – via NewsBank.
External links[edit]
- Aurora Village 1987 and 1991 (Video). KIRO 7 News. September 29, 2017 [Reports from July 9, 1987, and September 18, 1991] – via YouTube.