New Symphony Hall

Guided by the spirit of Burnham and Bennett’s Museum Campus design for Chicago’s lakefront park system, Professor Duncan Stroik’s studio proposes a Beaux Art Symphony Hall as the new home for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on N. Lakeshore Drive facing Lake Michigan. The current Chicago Symphony Center is tucked into a tall block on S. Michigan Ave across from the Art Institute. This new Symphony Hall proposes a larger, free-standing object building on a block corner with not one, but two sides that can engage with major streets. Looking at Berlin’s Konzerthaus for a parti and massing precedent, this new symphony hall uses a stepped massing to break up the sheer size of this symphony center. A grand stair entrance, also similar to the Konzerthaus, welcomes guests to the symphony from Lakeshore Dr with a dramatic ascent up to the main concert floor. Inside, the main concert hall pulls design precedent from the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, TN with a shoebox hall volume and clerestory windows. The shoebox hall is traditionally known for its ideal acoustics for symphonic performances. Clerestory windows, in the building’s transverse section, provide natural daylighting into an otherwise dark concert hall with sealed, double-paned windows that protect the hall’s acoustic isolation.