Why Your Stodgy Old Concert Hall Looks The Way It Does

New research supports the idea that the best way to hear music is in a room shaped like a shoebox.

In 1781, architect Johan Carl Friedrich Dauthe constructed one of the earliest philharmonic concert halls by retrofitting an upper floor of a textile trading house in Leipzig, Germany. Famous for its acoustics, the rectangular shape of the Gewandhaus became a model for classical music venues in subsequent years. Though the field of architectural acoustics would not appear on the scene for another century, Dauthe had already hit on a magic formula: Rectangular rooms sound better.
There is a compelling argument for not getting too fancy with the architecture of concert hall interiors.

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