Symphony Hall Evening Model

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The Future Home of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia. ... This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ... Calatrava is known for his organically inspired designs, such as LUmbracle at his Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències in Valencia. ...

The 279,600 square foot structure will provide the first dedicated concert hall and educational facility in the 60-year history of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble that enjoys international prominence under Music Director Robert Spano and Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles. The building-a key element in the evolving campus expansion of the Woodruff Arts Center- it will create a vital civic and economic resource for Atlanta and an exciting, modern symbol of the State of Georgia: a "postcard" image recognized around the world. The total project cost is estimated at $300 million. The Woodruff Arts Center is an arts center in the Midtown district of Atlanta, Georgia. ...

Terraced in layout and remarkably light and transparent, Calatrava's design enfolds generous expanses of glass and steel within gently curving shells of gleaming white concrete. Public areas in and around the building-notably a pair of light-filled lobbies-open onto landscaped plazas. The lower plaza provides a gracious entrance for visitors who arrive by car. The upper, which serves as a public gathering place and lookout, connects the building to a ceremonial allée of trees via an elevated walkway.

Rising from behind the structure and then swooping down, as if reaching toward Atlanta's Peachtree Street, are two "bent leaves" of delicate, lattice-like steel. The smaller of these marks a side entrance on a terrace. The larger, which tops the structure at 186 feet, gives dramatic definition to the building's central axis. Adding dynamism to the design, the movable steel "wings" of a sunscreen will open and close over the soaring, glazed volume of the upper lobby. Peachtree Street is the main north-south street of Atlanta, Georgia. ...

The concert hall features a surround hall with vineyard-style seating. The audience configuration provides for an intimate-feeling 2,000 seats around the Orchestra (including 200 seats for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus). At the same time, the ceiling height can be varied for acoustical purposes, from 48 feet to 104 feet above the stage. Two other performance spaces-a Rehearsal Hall and a Studio Hall-provide seating for 300-350 and 300 persons, respectively. A Learning Center, designed to engage people of all ages with the Orchestra, occupies 11,000 square feet of space. A Concert hall is a cultural building, which serves as performance venue, chiefly for classical instrumental music. ...

As the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra moves forward with the leadership phase of its Campaign for the Atlanta Symphony Center, it has inaugurated the Cornerstone Partners to honor corporate and community donors who have contributed $5 million or more. These leaders have had the vision and determination to accomplish this landmark project. Campaign Chairman Arthur Blank and The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation set the stage for the Cornerstone Partners with an early commitment of $15 million, and the Foundation has now more than doubled its original pledge by generously increasing it to $35 million. Arthur Blank (born 1942) was one of the founders of Home Depot. ... Wiktionary has a definition of: Foundation This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

"We were so encouraged that our original $15 million gift could serve as a catalyst for the Campaign early on," Blank said, "and we are confident that this additional contribution will continue to encourage others to join in making unprecedented commitments to this generation-defining project."

The Blank Foundation's initial contribution was instrumental in galvanizing support for the Symphony Center and was quickly followed by a $5 million commitment from Betty Gage Holland, complementing her farsighted gift of $1.4 million that funded the early acoustic and architectural planning for the project. A third Cornerstone gift of $5 million from the Zeist Foundation was recently increased to $7 million. The State of Georgia became a Cornerstone Partner in 2004 when the legislature approved a sales tax exemption on the construction costs for the project, worth an estimated $7.5 million. Look up Acoustic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary For the study of sound, a branch of physics, see acoustics. ...

Atlanta's corporate community has demonstrated outstanding support for the Symphony Center in recognition of the important role the project will play in the future of the City and State. The Coca-Cola Company became the first corporate Cornerstone Partner by making the largest corporate foundation grant in the company's history: $10 million to support the Atlanta Symphony Center. SunTrust Bank joins Coca-Cola as a Cornerstone Partner with a gift of $5 million, also the largest philanthropic contribution in its history. Both the Coca-Cola and SunTrust commitments set a new record for corporate gifts not only to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, but to any division of the Woodruff Arts Center as well. The wave shape (known as the dynamic ribbon device) present on all Coca-Cola cans throughout the world derives from the contour of the original Coca-Cola bottles. ... SunTrust Banks, Inc. ... Philanthropy involves the donation or granting of money to various worthy charitable causes. ... The Woodruff Arts Center is an arts center in the Midtown district of Atlanta, Georgia. ...

These are unprecedented commitments from Georgia's community for a visionary project. The Campaign Cabinet has now raised nearly $100 million in gifts and pledges. Of the total raised, nearly $60 million has been contributed by the ASO's Board of Directors and Campaign Cabinet - the largest leadership contribution in the history of the Woodruff Arts Center. Nearly $20 million from the corporate community, $7.6 million in public funding, and early support from ASO subscribers and members has been pledged to date. More than $40 million in new contributions to the Campaign have been received in the last 10 months, and more than $60 million in solicitations for the Campaign are currently in process.

See also

http://www.atlantasymphonycenter.org/

References

• Christina Mathews; The Kreisberg Group, Ltd.

• Charlie Wade; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

• Andrea Harris; Porter-Novelli.