But the traditional look hides an amazing complexity. For we live in an age in which an acoustically inferior music hall will be judged a failure, no matter how handsome the architecture. The team in charge of seeing that Bass Hall is acoustically sound is Jaffe Holden Scarbrough of Norwalk, Conn., which has designed the sound of some 200 concert halls, opera houses and other performance facilities in the United States, Latin America and the Far East. During a recent tour of Bass Hall, Christopher Jaffe, senior partner and noted acoustical authority, and Mark Holden, principal acoustical designer for Bass Hall, pointed out features. Such as the dome, with its feathers and clouds.
Domes can be a problem.
If they are spherical, they can have a focal point - and that can tend to concentrate sound. We suggested a series of domes, an inner dome and an outer dome. A further revision was to add ribs, which tend to break up the focusing. And right at the center there is a light fixture. Since Bass Hall is a multipurpose facility, the acoustical team had the task of seeing that it worked well for both orchestral concerts and stage productions.