Kresge Auditorium

report problems w/this page

Information about Kresge Auditorium

Kresge Auditorium from rear, looking toward I. M. Pei's Green Building.

Roof detail.

Interior view, with the MIT Summer Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kresge Auditorium is an auditorium building for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located at 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was designed by the noted architect Eero Saarinen, with ground-breaking in 1953 and dedication in 1955. It was designed together with the MIT Chapel, the two buildings separated by a "green." The ensemble is recognized as one of the best examples of mid-Century modern architecture in the US. Though unassuming by today's standards, the buildings were part of an attempt to define MIT's social cohesion. The Auditorium was where MIT students and faculty could gather for formal events, the chapel was intended for marriages and memorial; the green that stretches between the two buildings, in the tradition of early-American urban planning, was to serve as the setting for civic events. Though the campus has grown around the buildings, the essential features of this idea are still easily legible. The building was named for its principal funder, Sebastian S. Kresge, founder of Kresge Stores and the Kresge Foundation.

The auditorium is defined by an elegant thin-shell structure, one-eighth of a sphere rising to a height of 50 feet, and sliced away by sheer glass walls so that it comes to earth on only three points. Thin shelled concrete technology was innovative for the times. The dome weighs only 1200 tons and is clad with copper. Sitting on a circular brick platform, the dome contains a concert hall (with seating for 1226 people), with a lower level that houses a small theater (seating 204), two rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, offices, bathrooms, and lounges. The concert hall also contains a Holtkamp organ. The opening ceremony in 1955, that featured the organ, included a pice of music that was commissioned for the event, Aaron Copland's "Canticle of Freedom."

Every seat in concert hall has an unobstructed view since there are no interior supports for the overarching dome. Working with renowned acoustical architects Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Saarinen employed free-hanging acoustic "clouds" that absorb and direct sound, instead of a traditional plaster ceiling. These clouds also contained lights, loudspeakers, and ventilation.

While standing on either side of the entry lobby, one can distinctly hear people on the other side speaking in as low a voice as a whisper.

Reference

[1]

External links

Kresge Auditorium.

• • [ e] Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Academics	School of Engineering • School of Science • School of Architecture and Planning • School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences • Sloan School of Management • Division of Health Sciences and Technology • OpenCourseWare	MIT
Research	Laboratories • Broad Institute • Center for Theoretical Physics • Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory • Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems • Lincoln Laboratory • McGovern Institute for Brain Research • Media Lab • Picower Institute for Learning and Memory • Plasma Science and Fusion Center • Research Laboratory of Electronics • MIT Nuclear Reactor Lab
People	Alumni • Faculty • Presidents • Institute Professors
Culture	History of MIT • Traditions and activities • MIT in popular culture • Athena • Brass Rat • Hacks • The Tech • TMRC • Tech Squares • MIT $100K • Mystery Hunt
Campus	Architecture of MIT • Chapel • Green Building • Infinite Corridor • Kresge Auditorium • MIT Museum • Stata Center • Wiesner building • Graduate Residences • Undergraduate Residences • Fraternities and Sororities

An auditorium (auditoria pl.) is the area within a theatre, concert hall or other performance space where the audience is located in order to hear and watch the performance. For movie theaters the number of auditoriums is also expressed as the number of screens.
..... Click the link for more information.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private, coeducational research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing 32 academic departments,^[3]
..... Click the link for more information.

Massachusetts Avenue, known to locals as Mass Ave, is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts and several cities and towns northwest of Boston.

The route

..... Click the link for more information.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Seal
Location in Middlesex County in Massachusetts
Coordinates:
Country United States
State Massachusetts
County Middlesex
..... Click the link for more information.

An architect is a person who is involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a building's construction. The word "architect" (Latin: architectus) derives from the Greek arkhitekton (arkhi (chief) + tekton (builder))")^[1]
..... Click the link for more information.

Eero Saarinen (IPA: eːro saːrinen) (August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish American architect and product designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or
..... Click the link for more information.

19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s
1950 1951 1952 - 1953 - 1954 1955 1956

Year 1953 (MCMLIII
..... Click the link for more information.

19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s
1952 1953 1954 - 1955 - 1956 1957 1958

Year 1955 (MCMLV
..... Click the link for more information.

MIT Chapel (dedicated 1955) is a non-denominational chapel designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen. It is located on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, next to Kresge Auditorium and Kresge Oval, which Saarinen also designed, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
..... Click the link for more information.

Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes post-war developments in modern design from roughly 1945 to 1965. Mid-century architecture was a further development of Frank Lloyd Wright's principles of organic architecture
..... Click the link for more information.

Sebastian Spering Kresge (July 31, 1867 – October 18, 1966), American merchant and philanthropist, was the founder of the The S. S. Kresge Company (later Kmart), now known as the Sears Holdings Corporation.
..... Click the link for more information.

The Kresge Foundation is a U.S. philanthropic foundation dedicated to building stronger nonprofit organizations. It was established in 1924 by the founder of Kmart, Sebastian Kresge.

The Foundation is a $3.
..... Click the link for more information.

Thin-shell structures are light weight constructions using shell elements. These elements are typically curved and are assembled to large structures. Typical applications are fuselages of aeroplanes and roof structures in building.
..... Click the link for more information.

A sphere is a symmetrical geometrical object. In non-mathematical usage, the term is used to refer either to a round ball or to its two-dimensional surface. In mathematics, a sphere is the set of all points in three-dimensional space (R³
..... Click the link for more information.

concert hall is a cultural building, which serves as performance venue, chiefly for classical instrumental music. Many concert halls exist as one of several halls or performance spaces within a larger performing arts center and, where appropriate, the name of the arts centre is
..... Click the link for more information.

organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. It uses wind moving through metal or wood pipes and/or it uses sampled organ sounds or oscillators to produce sound, which remains constant while a key is depressed.
..... Click the link for more information.

Aaron Copland (November 14 1900 – December 2 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as “the dean of American composers.
..... Click the link for more information.

Acoustics is the branch of physics concerned with the study of sound (mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids). A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician. The application of acoustics in technology is called acoustical engineering.
..... Click the link for more information.

BBN Technologies (originally Bolt Beranek and Newman) is a high-technology company that provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.
You can assist by [ editing it] now. A how-to guide is available, as is general .
This article has been tagged since February 2007.
..... Click the link for more information.

Ventilation is the intentional movement of air from outside a building to the inside. It is the V in HVAC. With clothes dryers, and combustion equipment such as water heaters, boilers, fireplaces, and woodstoves, their exhausts are often called vents or
..... Click the link for more information.

A lobby is a room in a building which is used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer or an entrance hall.

Many office buildings, hotels and Skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create the right impression^[1]
..... Click the link for more information.

Whisper may refer to:

whispering, a form of vocalization

In fiction:

Whisper (Fable), fictitious character in the popular Fantasy RPG Fable
Whisper, a character created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond novel and film

..... Click the link for more information.

architecture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology includes dozens of buildings representing diverse architectural styles and shifting campus priorities. MIT's architectural history can be broadly split into four eras: the Boston campus, the new Cambridge campus before World
..... Click the link for more information.

sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.

Herod_Archelaus

iPedia Free Information Center