page_title: Hill Auditorium
section_title: Design concept
hierarchical_section_title: Hill Auditorium / Design concept
caption_attribution_description: English: Inside of Hill Auditorium
context_page_description: Hill Auditorium is the largest performance venue on the University of Michigan campus, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The auditorium was named in honor of Arthur Hill, who served as a regent of the university from 1901 to 1909. He bequeathed $200,000 to the university for the construction of a venue for lectures, musical performances, and other large productions. Opened in 1913, the auditorium was designed by Albert Kahn and Associates. It was recently renovated by the same firm beginning in 2002 and was re-opened in 2004.
  With seating for up to 3,538 audience members, Hill is one of the most popular venues for large productions on campus. The building routinely hosts performances given by the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and the School of Music's various ensembles, including the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, University of Michigan Philharmonia Orchestra, University of Michigan Concert Band, University of Michigan Symphony Band, and University of Michigan Choirs, as well as the mostly non-major ensembles such as the University of Michigan Arts Chorale, the Campus Symphony Orchestra, Campus Bands, the Michigan Marching Band, and the Men's Glee Club and Women's Glee Club.
context_section_description: Carol Rose Kahn, the architect’s granddaughter recounted that her grandfather had set out to develop a hall with perfect acoustics. The brief was to design an auditorium that would seat five thousand people, where they could hear from every seat. The only known previous example was the Mormon Tabernacle where, it was said that one could hear a pin drop from the stage to the top balcony, although the chamber suffered from excess reverberation.
  Being aware that only one man in the country who was pre-eminent at that time – Hugh Tallant, partner of Henry Beaumont Herts – Kahn wrote to ask him if it would be possible to build an auditorium for five thousand people, where they'd hear from every seat. Tallant responded, but only after several months had elapsed, to the affirmative; so Tallant designed the acoustics. The result was an auditorium in the shape of a megaphone. The granddaughter said: "Hill Auditorium was nearly finished when I was fourteen or so. My father and I went out to Ann Arbor. Father stood up in the last seat of the second balcony, and I went down on the stage. On my word of honor, I dropped a pin and he heard it."
caption: An interior view of Hill Auditorium is shown.
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