Chan Centre for the Performing Arts Vancover Bc Archdaily

Visionary Architecture

By Jennifer Van Evra

Virtually concert halls are designed effectually audiences — but i of architect Bing Thom's master aims was to create the all-time possible experience for artists.

Thom's affinity with musicians was deep and enduring. At the age of x he immigrated from Hong Kong to Vancouver, where he played in the Kitsilano Boys' Band and bandleader Arthur Delamont became similar a male parent to him. Although Thom didn't choose music as a career, he continued to play clarinet and establish smashing joy in live music.

"He knew that when the artist walks out on the stage, you accept to be inspired to play your best work," says Bing Thom Architects Principal Michael Heeney, who was instrumental in the Chan Centre'southward development. "So that impact was very, very big in how he conceived and developed the building."

Music echoes through what Thom called "the visual acoustics" of the building. The Chan Shun Concert Hall itself is shaped like the inside of a cello, and the wood seats and accents add to the room'due south warmth and exceptional audio. Radiating stainless-steel cables resemble the strings and frets of an instrument, providing another subtle musical reference.

For a venue of its size, the hall is also remarkably intimate. Because the balconies are stacked rather than reaching backward, the room can hold nearly 1,400 people—and yet the creative person is never more than 100 feet from any audience member.

"Beauty and functionality are never in conflict. What works and what is beautiful are one and the same affair," said Thom in a 2002 interview. "Beauty is not something to be applied to something else. Beauty evolves from a deep understanding of demand."

The Chan Shun Concert Hall is 1 of three venues at the Chan Heart. Modelled afterward the famed Globe Theatre in London, the experimental "black box" Telus Studio Theatre was designed to maximize creative options. Twelve three-tier seating towers tin exist moved to create any number of configurations, while a complex catwalk organisation provides a broad range of rigging possibilities. Down the hall, the Royal Bank Movie theatre is a comfy 160-seat cinema primarily used for academic lectures and film screenings.

From the exterior, the edifice exudes svelte, timeless fashion. Because of its size — 76,000 square anxiety over eight storeys — Thom was concerned that it could seem imposing and out of step with adjacent structures, many of which were half the peak, and then he fabricated several primal design decisions.

Rather than clearing the site and opening views to Howe Audio, Thom preserved the soaring trees, which made the building seem smaller in scale. Without defined edges, its oval shape makes its size less apparent, too, while the exterior's diamond-shaped zinc cladding, which changes appearance with the weather, gives the visual sense that the building is receding toward the height.

The design also reflects the architect's deeply rooted reverence for nature, and the interplay between the building and the natural world is a recurring theme. The lighting in the rotunda ceiling is meant to emulate stars in the night heaven, while the leafy design on the rug — designed by Thom's married woman Bonnie — echoes the forest floor.

But past far the most hitting link to the natural world is the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the entrance hall. The glass is tilted at a x-degree angle then that instead of seeing their ain reflections, concertgoers look out to the Dorothy Somerset Grove — a grouping of firs and cedars, many over 100 years former.

Thom worked with Boston lighting designer Bill Lam to strike the perfect residue of indoor and outdoor lighting so the trees would be clearly visible at dark. "I remember seeing these two guys sitting in a room with the lights off," remembers Heeney with a laugh. "They had this model of the glass, and they were playing effectually with flashlights, trying to figure out what bending the drinking glass could be to minimize the reflections. It was quite fun."

In addition to its bold architectural features, the building boasts myriad smaller but equally thoughtful touches, including the exquisite painting Silent Woods, which Thom commissioned from acclaimed B.C. artist Gordon Smith, that hangs near the archway. (It's actually fabricated up of several smaller paintings, allowing it to follow the bend of the wall.) Centred around a futuristic-looking circular steel and glass sink pedestal, the ultra-modern women'southward washroom is so striking that when the Chan Heart first opened, women were bringing their boyfriends and husbands in for a quick look.

In the terminate, the building needed to satisfy a remarkable range of needs, and to act seamlessly equally a concert hall, a formalism infinite, a rental facility, a rehearsal hall, and more. 20 years later, Thom's graceful design is regarded every bit a triumph.

"The design of a performing arts eye encapsulates everything I honey and believe virtually architecture," said Thom, whose passion was creating people-focused designs that elevated entire communities. "Similar music, a edifice must always reply to human emotional needs, specially our yearning for the side by side surprise or the next delight."

Bing Thom died in Hong Kong on October 4, 2016 at the age of 75. The sad news triggered an outpouring of heartfelt tributes from the compages community, also as those who had been touched past the convivial architect and his outstanding work.

"He inspired other architects to realize that y'all are doing more than only putting together bricks and mortar," says Heeney. "You have the ability to alter gild — and in fact, you have a duty to practise that."

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Source: https://chancentre.com/visionary-architecture/

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