Orchestra Hall's Next Movement

While the auditorium, which is a separate structure, was built to last, Grangaard says that the lobby, which got much less of the building budget than the auditorium, had a “shorter expected life.” The materials used in the lobby were less durable than the “fortress-like” auditorium. Now more than 30 years old, the lobby is in need of maintenance.

Besides, it’s too small. “At intermission, you can get a drink or use the restroom, but not both,” Grangaard says. “It’s crowded. You have to elbow your way around. There are insufficient restrooms. We don’t have a gathering place for a private event. The tier drop [on the mezzanine level] is the only place with a view, but it’s blocked by the big tubes. So we lose an ambiance that a concert hall should have.”

Grangaard envisions a glassy exterior with a dramatic downtown view. “Our goal is that the lobby will have a significant tier with northwestern exposure so people could see the sunset, the cupola of the basilica, the downtown skyline,” he says.

“We’d like to do something inviting and ‘fanfare-ish,’” agrees Jorja Fleezanis, the orchestra’s concertmaster since 1989. She’d also like to see a smaller space off the lobby where patrons could go to learn about instruments or hear about the evening’s composer—“a small info zone that connects you to the experience.”

The second leg of the renovation plan is reworking Peavey, the half-block sunken plaza that amplified Orchestra Hall’s impact on Nicollet Mall. It was a groundbreaking space when it was conceived. But it has become somewhat troublesome—for the orchestra and the surrounding neighborhood.

What To Do About Peavey Plaza

When it opened, Peavey Plaza’s tiered landscape, designed by New York landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg, was hailed as an urban triumph. A fountain streamed out of bronze cylinders on the corner of Nicollet and 12th Street. Pristine concrete steps that doubled as seating descended to a pool that hosted ice skating in the winter, à la New York’s Rockefeller Center. Textured plantings added elements of human scale. The space became the public outdoor venue for political gatherings, outdoor music, and summertime events such as Sommerfest, Ribfest, and the Aquatennial.

Three decades later, orchestra and downtown leaders say, the plaza is down at the heels, outdated, at times even scary. Grabarski, for one, says it’s plagued by drunks and belligerents. “It’s so sunken that from Nicollet Mall you can’t see certain corners of it,” Grangaard says. “Go to the Piazza Navona in Rome or St. Mark’s Plaza in Venice and there are not places people can hide [there].”

No design has been developed or landscape architect hired, but the goal is to incorporate an outdoor stage and amphitheater. Vänskä says that his dream is an outdoor performance space with water, along with a performance “shell,” with a movable roof that would allow it to be used in October and March. He believes that there’s a lot of potential for its use by the orchestra and others as well.

But landscape architects and historic preservationists are likely to oppose major changes to a landscape that is considered a modern urban design icon. “Peavey Plaza is one of the finest postwar landscapes in the country,” says local landscape historian Frank Edgerton Martin, who’s been documenting the plaza’s history. “Why do we keep tearing down places just as they become historically significant?”

Another possibility that may raise hackles is turning the public plaza over to a private entity such as the Orchestral Association. Grabarski sees a situation like that at New York’s Bryant Park, which had become a haven for crime and drugs until a private development corporation took it over. Though Peavey Plaza hasn’t declined nearly as much as Bryant Park had, Grabarski is convinced that private ownership could ensure a higher level of maintenance and policing.

Sound and Vision

The orchestra’s third renovation objective is refining the acoustics of what all agree is an excellent 2,450-seat auditorium. The primary goal in building the hall originally was “excellence in acoustics” and it is known as a “brilliant” hall. As Fleezanis puts it, “It’s live. It’s warm. It’s just almost too rambunctious. When you put a pops concert in there with amplification, it can be almost deafening.”

Fleezanis also describes the hall as “sort of Jekyll and Hyde. The benign one is in the concert, when suddenly the acoustics become everything you hope for in the rehearsal. When it’s empty, it’s so live that the effect is like scrambling the information.”

Says trombonist Doug Wright, who plays against the too-lively back wall with its signature “cubes,” “Oftentimes, we can’t hear anything. But when we can hear, we have to play slightly ahead of what we hear but behind what we see. That’s why I have the gray hair you see today. We’re really going against our training.”

The question, Wright says, is how to correct that problem without disturbing the acoustics the audience enjoys. One idea is adding a 150-seat chorus loft in back of the orchestra. When not occupied by a chorus, the seats could be sold to those seeking an up-close and personal experience.