平特五不中

As a kid, I always liked sketching things. And curiously enough, when I did drawings as a kid, I always drew sections. I seldom drew elevations of things. I was sort of interested in the insides of things. I guess sections are kind of architectural. Like most kids my age, I was very interested in building models and I built all kinds of models. I had a model railway. I probably spent more time building model buildings for the railway than anything else. I would go and sketch a building in downtown Montreal and then I鈥檇 build a model of it. So I鈥檇 always been very interested in architecture. It鈥檚 interesting, when I was at Lower Canada, I thought that I might be headed for engineering or something like that or possibly joining the navy. And then we took a preference test at LCC. This was a very bizarre test because it had, you know, questions like: 鈥淲ould you rather help an old lady cross the street or paint a poster for a school play?鈥� Which turned out that most of my colleagues giving the politically correct answers ended up supposedly destined for social work. But mine turned out to be architecture. At that point, I thought about it and I said, 鈥淲hy not?鈥� And that鈥檚 really how I chose architecture.

[1:31:07]

平特五不中 was a natural for a whole bunch of reasons. Both of my parents taught at 平特五不中. Probably the first word that I heard at the dinner table was 平特五不中. And secondly, it was within an easy walking distance of where I lived. I already knew about 平特五不中 so it was really a logical one. And, of course, 平特五不中 was a very good school of architecture as well, so.

So you entered 平特五不中, what, in what year?

In 1959.

First of all I can talk about some of the professors who influenced me and the ways in which they did. I mean they probably all did in various ways. I think the professor whose teachings really had most influence, although we didn鈥檛 realize it at the time, was probably Gordon Webber. Because the basic design course that Gordon Webber taught really taught us a lot about design in the most fundamental sense, which no other course did. And I thought that that was an extremely useful course and an extremely interesting course.

[3:03:28]

But your comment is interesting because a lot of us didn鈥檛 appreciate it as much. In hindsight, we appreciate the value of Gordon Webber a lot more.

That鈥檚 right. I think it鈥檚 just a function of our maturity at the time. And I went to 平特五不中 as a teenager, as most of us do.

So Gordon Webber, and I think he taught, what, one or two years when you were there?

Oh, it was more than one or two years. Gordie taught for I think probably from second year up until fifth year, possibly into sixth year. So there鈥檚 a whole sequence of courses. We sort of started out with working with the most basic design elements like the dot and the line and then as you went through the years, got into colour and texture and tactile experiences, even making musical instruments. It was wonderful!

That鈥檚 right!

And Gordon had an absolutely wonderful enthusiasm for what he did, which was somewhat infectious.

[4:10:01]

I think he was probably very diplomatic. I think Gordy really could see the good in almost everybody. So I鈥檝e got a very high regard for Gordon.

How about some of the others who were there in your time? Like, I鈥檓 thinking of- who taught history? Was it Peter Collins then?

We had Peter Collins for most of the history courses. Again, probably four years of Peter Collins. At the time, I felt that perhaps his methods might have been a little rigid, but in 鈥� well, he used to lock the door of the lecture theatre promptly when the lecture started and he wouldn鈥檛 let anybody else in after that, which seemed to me a little extreme, but it did mean you got to his lectures on time. I think he really imbued in all of us a great love of architecture and a sense of what went before. And I had the extreme pleasure of writing and reading a citation for him at the Technical University of Nova Scotia because we gave him a Doctor of Engineering honoris causa several years ago. And it was very, very nice to be able to do that and to be able to put in my own words what I felt about Peter and what he had done for us.

[6:04:27]

How about- I鈥檓 trying to think of some of the others like, I guess Stuart Wilson was around during your years.

Well, I remember the president of our class was George Schonfeld, who you probably know. And as you probably also remember, we used to have- every year there was a dinner for the graduating class in Redpath Hall. And George sort of described our progress through the school and I remember him describing his third year and our dealings with Stuart Wilson, you know, 鈥淲e fought him in the design studio, we fought him in the workshop, we fought him in the construction site鈥�. That was an incredible course though. As architectural basic training, I can鈥檛 think of a better one. We were able after that third year, which is really the first design year, and when you consider the incredible progress that you made in that year, starting off really with not knowing how to design anything because second year was mostly second year engineering. So this was the first architectural design construction course. And we went from really never having designed anything to producing a complete set of working drawings for a building and the framing model and everything else. You know, the output in that year was absolutely phenomenal, a great test of stamina. But it meant that when you went out into the world and worked in that summer, you had a tremendously good preparation. And the other thing, of course, that one carries through life is if you survived third year under Stuart Wilson, you can survive anything!

[7:54:28]

I mean, we learned a great deal from Stuart. Like many experiences at university, you sometimes realize the benefits more strongly after than you do while you鈥檙e going through it. I鈥檓 sure that basic training is much the same way. But it鈥檚 the closest thing to architectural boot camp that I can think of.

Was John Schreiber around when you were there at all?

John Schreiber taught us a course in architectural graphics. In those days, we were working with watercolour washes and that type of thing. And John was also my thesis advisor in my final year. I was doing a theatre project for 平特五不中 in that year. I didn鈥檛 have that much contact with John actually throughout that year.

[8:56:18]

Well, we had an early meeting and we talked about theatre and so on. And I鈥檇 always been interested in theatre and had worked in the theatre at 平特五不中 for years and years and years and produced plays and so on, all that kind of thing, and also worked a lot on the technical side. And we sort of had sort of some interesting discussions right at the beginning and then I guess he left me on my own because he figured out that I knew what I was doing.

And you could pretty well cope with it.

Yeah. I think he did and I rather appreciated that, actually.

[9:51:01]

Was John Bland teaching in those years?

John Bland was teaching History of Canadian Architecture when I was there, which reminds me of a very interesting anecdote. You probably remember the annual Christmas parties, which were extremely funny. You probably remember Gerry Soyferman as Santa Clause, for example. Well, John Bland, as Peter Collins did, used to ask students to run the slides at the back of the room. And something curious always seemed to happen with John Bland鈥檚 slides or the person that was operating them. You know, half of them came out upside down, backwards, out of order and everything else. And one year, and it wasn鈥檛 our year, I wish we had because it was extremely funny, gave him this absolutely beautiful coloured waistcoat which was full of pockets with various gear in them. And the gear was really essentially various signals to the projectionist. You know, there was a cricket, which sort of said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 the wrong way round鈥�. And there was a whistle, which said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 upside down鈥�. And there was probably a flag or two. But the funniest one was sort of a pistol with a label on the handle that said, 鈥淔orget it鈥�. That was one of the nicest presents. He used to keep it hanging on his office wall, I remember.

[11:21:24]

I remember one year, maybe it was- I don鈥檛 recall, obviously, which one. But since it was Christmas, they gave him turkey, except it was still alive.

Well that was the last Christmas party. I think the faculty decided that was it after that. Things were getting somewhat out of hand. We gave Stuart Wilson a bottle of whiskey cast in a block of plaster because one of the projects we had- we had all these construction, little constructional things we had to do. We had to sort of carve things and we had to place concrete and God knows what. And one of the things involved working with plaster casting. So anyway, we took this bottle of scotch, it was a very good scotch, wrapped it in burlap and reinforced everything, and then put it in this rectangular block of plaster. And we shaped it in such a way that the end which looked as if it were the neck of the bottle was actually the bottom of the bottle. So then he immediately went into the workshop and went at it with a chisel. We were kind enough to tell him that actually the end which looked as if it was the neck was in fact the bottom so he attacked the other end.

[12:41:14]

He would have always thought that you did not do that intentionally. Maybe, I don鈥檛 know.

But I think he got successfully to the bottle and didn鈥檛 break it and presumably enjoyed the contents. In fact, some of us may have enjoyed some of the contents with him at the time.

Do you have any memories of Sketching School?

Some places were better than others. We did one in Baie Saint-Paul, which was wonderful, which I really enjoyed. We did one in Kingston, which I didn鈥檛 enjoy as much, because I think at that point, I don鈥檛 know what there was in the Kingston water supply but it thoroughly disagreed with me so I had sort of intestinal problems through most of Sketching School.

Which doesn鈥檛 make it very comfortable.

No it doesn鈥檛 and I think my sketches from that Sketching School reflect my state of body as opposed to my state of mind.

[13:53:04]

The other trip that we took, most of us took, I guess, was to Survey School.

Ah! What an experience! I always got along very well with engineers, as I still do. And I happened to make friends with one of the engineer- I guess he was probably a graduate student, who was working in the instrument shed at Survey School. And I was very lucky because, because he was a friend of mine, I always seemed to get the beautiful, Swiss-made Wild instruments, which weighed about a third as much as the horrible old dumpy levels and so on, didn鈥檛 dig holes in your shoulder, had three leveling screws instead of four and were optically superior. So I had quite a time at Survey School. That was convenient! There were some funny things that happened. We won鈥檛 talk about the finest unit of precision, which is used in engineering, which was that there were- there was at least one woman at Survey School. You鈥檝e probably heard this unit of precision mentioned, which I will forebear to discuss. But there were some things that I really remember about Survey School. This was, of course, in Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon. And we stayed in various holiday hotels, which were sort of known as the Blank Pavilion and other names like that. And then, of course, there was Plague Beach, which we went to from time to time. And the proverbial creek, which we always ended up having to drop a plumb bob in the middle of, a chaining exercise. One of the fellows who ran, I guess it was a motel, at the time the students were leaving, they were sort of packing up and they were all ready to go, he presented one group with a bill because he claimed that they had scratched his picture window. And this would cost, I don鈥� t know, the princely sum of thirty dollars or something in those days. And I remember seeing this and the student protested he hadn鈥檛, he certainly hadn鈥檛 scratched the window and this fellow absolutely insisted. It was getting rather unpleasant, so the student handed him the thirty dollars and the guy smiled and said, 鈥淭hank you very much鈥� and put it in his pocket. He happened to have his field boots with him and he took them and he threw them through the window, completely destroying the window. And the hotelier was rather angry, but the student said, 鈥淲ell, you know, you鈥檙e going to replace this window anyway. I鈥檓 just helping you remove it鈥�.

[16:51:09]

Sort of one-upmanship.

Yeah, the other thing that we used to occasionally do to torture our fellow students was this: Survey School required a lot of precision. So we all had these ancient, Marchand calculators and so on that we rented. The thing about a mechanical calculator in those days is it doesn鈥檛 recognize that dividing one by zero is an impossible operation. So what it does is it tries to get to infinity. So you press one, you divide by zero and it goes ka-chonk-ka-chonk-ka-chonk. Bloop. Ka-chonk-ka-chonk-ka-chonk. And will do that until the damn thing burns out or wears down. So the thing that we used to do, which we thought was excruciatingly funny is sneak into somebody鈥檚 bedroom at four in the morning and divide one by zero on the Marchand calculator and then sneak out! So those were some of the memories of Survey School.

[17:50:12]

I鈥檇 like to talk a little bit about 平特五不中. 平特五不中 is, as you know, in my blood because of both my parents, one of whom was a nuclear physicist and the other was a physiologist. And I think probably 平特五不中 is one of the most civilized universities that I鈥檝e experienced. When you meet 平特五不中 people later on, and I suppose Montreal has somewhat that quality too, there鈥檚 a sort of a civilized and a gentle quality which I associate with 平特五不中 and also I certainly associate with my memories of Montreal. As far as the School of Architecture is concerned, we were very lucky, I think, to be in a very small class. There were only fourteen of us.

And your graduating year was-?

1965. There were fourteen of us. I calculated the attrition rate from first-year engineering through to the end was probably around ninety-four percent so we were the survivors, also joined by some people who had missed a year or dropped down a year or something like that. So we didn鈥檛 finish with everybody who we started with. But I would say probably out of the fourteen, somewhere in the order of nine of us had started together. And although as in any class, you know, there were groups of sort of commonality of interest, basically, we all got along really well and we all helped each other. And the School of Architecture in a sense felt somewhat like a happy band of brothers I think. You know, I have these sort of very, very happy memories. I mean there were tough moments and we all used to get together at the time of the supplemental exams in Calculus and Advanced Calculus and things like that. But I would say that, you know, by and large, it was a wonderful experience. I think that John Bland is largely responsible for this. John鈥檚 integrity, his decency, his vision of a school which recognized the fact that architecture is both art and science, the fact that he put together an incredible curriculum which included not only all of the Bauhaus programme, which Gordie in effect ran. He鈥檇 studied under Moholy-Nagy, of course. He鈥檇 been in Chicago, I believe. A lot of- a great many engineering courses, which were also I think highly beneficial, particularly courses like Strength of Materials and some of the structure courses were really quite good, plus, of course Architectural Design and Construction and a very good programme in history. It was a remarkably well-rounded curriculum, a test of stamina as well, of course.

[21:19:28]

Yeah. It鈥檚 interesting; I think that most people who graduated feel exactly the way you do, both about 平特五不中 and the School of Architecture. Almost like, I don鈥檛 want to use the word fraternity, but all the positive nuances of a fraternity were there.

Exactly, a band of brothers. Interestingly enough, I belonged to a fraternity as well, Sigma Chi, which was one of the fraternities that remained while a number of the others disappeared for a while.

Wasn鈥檛 Rudy Javosky? Was he there at the same time?

Rudy was there. There were a number of other architects in the fraternity. There were probably more architects in Sigma Chi than any other fraternity. Ron Williams, Ron Williams was there. This is an aside really. We鈥檙e not talking about fraternities but the fascinating thing was, I鈥檝e been on the board of directors of the RAIC. My term just ended this past summer but fascinatingly enough, four members of the board are all graduates of 平特五不中, three of them are fraternity brothers, all having been in Sigma Chi and representing most of the provinces of Canada, because I represented four of them, the representative of British Columbia was also a 平特五不中 graduate, Robert Thibodeau represented Quebec and Lachapelle represented Ontario. Now, Lachapelle finished off at the technical university but certainly started at 平特五不中. He probably had too much of a good time!

[23:06:20]

I鈥檓 interested a little bit about your years, or we can always go back to other thoughts of 平特五不中, but you graduated in 鈥�65 and then what happened to you after that? Because you鈥檝e taken off a different-

Well, it鈥檚 interesting. As I mentioned before, I鈥檇 always been interested in theatres and performance spaces. And when I was working on my thesis project, I went to see Victor Prus, who at that time had just won the Grand Th茅芒tre de Qu茅bec competition. And Victor looked over my work and then he asked me if I鈥檇 like to look over the drawings of the Grand Th茅芒tre, which of course I looked at. And he鈥檇 given me a fairly good crit on what I鈥檇 done, so I, you know, almost being slightly outspoken, also gave him a crit on the Grand Th茅芒tre de Qu茅bec. So we sat down. Having a cup of tea after and Victor asked me if I would like a job working on the Grand Th茅芒tre. And, of course, I leapt at this opportunity because it was a very, very interesting building, one of the few competition entries which didn鈥檛 increase by one foot in any direction, developing form the competition entry to the final design. So it was a very exciting experience to be working on that project and a very wonderful experience to be working with Victor. I think we had the luxury in those days to really study problems very well. The bottom line wasn鈥檛 the only thing. And I remember Victor would say, 鈥淲ell, Peter, I would like you to study this particular part of the project鈥�, which might have been the small theatre. And what Victor would say is, 鈥淚 want you to go away for two weeks and I want you to come back with four different ways of doing this. And then we鈥檒l sit down and talk鈥�. And I thought this was absolutely wonderful. I mean it could very well be that the first one that you came up with was the most logical and the best. But nevertheless, it was this studying of alternatives. And Victor was a great teacher鈥�

So you worked with him for a while.

鈥� and a great inspiration.

[25:16:27]

I worked with him until we were into the final phases of working drawings. And at that time, I had the opportunity to go out on my own. I had two or three projects and I鈥檇 just joined the PQAA and I also had an office that I could work in with some people that I had worked with before. So at that point, I left Victor鈥檚 office and struck out on my own.

As an architect?

As an architect. And did some small timber buildings, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing. And then this was really the post-Expo period. Montreal was going through the cycles that it tends to go through. Things were getting into a bit of a slump. There wasn鈥檛 a great deal of work around. And I鈥檇 had a traveling scholarship left over from 平特五不中, which I had never used. So I thought and I was encouraged to, not by my parents but by the colleagues who I was working with, to go off and get a Master鈥檚 degree in architecture. So I wrote to Columbia, MIT and Harvard. And from Columbia and MIT, I鈥檇 received great stacks of forms to fill out. From Harvard I received a one-page letter which said- I was accepted to all three-, which said, 鈥淵es, we would like you to come to Harvard. Send us fifty dollars US鈥�, which was actually less than fifty dollars Canadian at the time. So I threw all of the other paper in the wastepaper basket and sent a cheque to Harvard. That鈥檚 how I went to Harvard.

[27:12:02]

So you took your Master鈥檚 degree in Architecture?

That鈥檚 right. And I found out, to my great delight, that I could take as many courses at MIT at the same time, because there was complete cross-registration between Harvard and MIT. So it was the best of both worlds.

So did you specialize in acoustics then?

Well, I started to at that point. Bob Newman, part of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, one of the founding members, taught acoustics at both Harvard and at MIT. But the MIT acoustics courses were more intensive with more contact hours. So I decided to do several acoustics courses at MIT. And about the time I was graduating from Harvard, Bob Newman asked me if I would like to come work for him at BBN, which is exactly what I did.

[28:02:14]

Were they located in Boston at the time?

They were in Cambridge. They also had offices elsewhere but Cambridge was really the head office and that鈥檚 really where the partners were. So I leapt at the opportunity and I haven鈥檛 regretted it since. I鈥檝e been involved in acoustics really since I graduated from Harvard, which was really around 鈥�69.

So you worked with Bolt, Beranek and Newman for a period of time and then you came here.

Until about 1977. And I was lucky enough to work very closely with Bob Newman and to work on a lot of really interesting projects all over the world. The reason I went into acoustics I think primarily was the fact that I realized that I could work on more interesting buildings in my life as a consultant than I could as an architect. And that鈥檚 exactly what鈥檚 happened. You know, I would have worked on far fewer buildings.

[29:04:29]

I鈥檓 interested because most people, I think, when you talk of acoustics, you think of theatres primarily. Is that the largest part of your work?

Not in this part of the world because we鈥檙e not building a lot of theatres, although I鈥檝e worked on about five of them here, some simply doing the acoustics and some doing acoustics and theatre consulting, which I鈥檝e gotten into.

What would be another area of your expertise?

Well, a lot of work in academic buildings. Just finished two, actually. One is the Sobey Business Building at Saint Mary鈥檚 and then there鈥檚 the Faculty of Computer Science Building at Dalhousie. We鈥檙e working on the new Faculty of Arts and Science Building, which is just going up now. Rather, it鈥檚 in the ground. It hasn鈥檛 come up out of the ground yet. We worked on all kinds of buildings, the new Coast Guard College. We did a new school of music at Memorial University in Newfoundland; hospitals, hotels, a world trade and convention centre, major arenas, you name it.

[30:25:17]

It鈥檚 an interesting field that you鈥檙e in but it鈥檚 a field that鈥檚 not very familiar to the public. I mean, if you asked, or if somebody asked you at a cocktail party what you were doing for a living, and you鈥檇 probably say that you are an architect and if you鈥檙e prodded on further that you specialize in acoustics, and they probably wouldn鈥檛 know what to ask after that.

Exactly.

People always- like I just think of theatres, but it鈥檚 a lot more expansive than that.

Yeah. Architects in this part of the world don鈥檛 routinely use acoustical consultants but one partic- federal government projects use acoustical consultants more. But, what can I say, if an architect is required to use an acoustical consultant, he will, or if it鈥檚 a project of such magnitude or stature, one which it鈥檚 so obvious that you need an acoustical consultant, we鈥� ll work on that one. So we鈥檝e tended to work on a lot of large projects and sort of, you know, interesting buildings.

[31:29:10]

So you basically work on your own?

Yes. Fundamentally, yeah. I have a- I normally have a student working with me and I support the co-op programme at TUNS. The students are required as part of their education to work. And from time to time, I鈥檒l associate with other consultants with very particular types of expertise which I may not be quite as experienced in. So we just bring the best expertise that we can.

You never told me why you decided to come to Halifax.

Well, that鈥檚 interesting. Halifax, I鈥檇 visited Halifax a few times and I rather liked it. Although Boston is on the ocean, it doesn鈥檛 have the same sense of being on the ocean as Halifax does. I had always been fond of sailing, which virtually everybody does here. Certainly, pretty well all the architects here do, some very well indeed. While I was in Boston, I taught at the Boston Architectural Center School of Architecture for about six or seven years and thoroughly enjoyed it. And there was an opportunity to come and teach at the technical university, which was at that time the only university in Canada which had what you would call an environment lab. It had a lot of measurement equipment for acoustics and it had a wind tunnel. You know, so that I鈥檇- and I鈥� d always enjoyed teaching anyway so I thought that what I would do is go into full-time teaching for a while. This opportunity presented itself, and the opportunity to return to Canada. What it also represented was an opportunity to be in acoustics in a sense much more self- reliant because there wasn鈥檛 all of the expertise surrounding me or all of the colleagues surrounding me. You know, the absence of colleagues is not necessarily an advantage but it allows you to grow in various ways, which you wouldn鈥檛 otherwise.

[33:34:13]

And you鈥檙e compensated for that by association with the university and other things like that.

Yeah, and simply by studying, reading, taking courses, you know, professionally developing, you know, myself.

You鈥檝e seemed to have done all of the things in life that most people would want to do! Have you any second thoughts at all about the career that you chose?

The only- the thing that I would have loved to have done, of course, would have been to have- got a teaching job at 平特五不中 and return to Montreal but it never quite panned out that way.

I think you鈥檙e better off here!

I was short-listed for a while. And then Peter Collins died, and they really needed an architectural historian, or somebody with somewhat different qualifications than I had.

[34:26:02]

You know, it鈥檚 interesting; acoustics by some has always been thought of as some kind of engineering specialty or something like that. The fact of the matter is that everybody who ran the big projects at BBN, and I was very, very lucky to actually run a number of them, some major art centres. And what happened at BBN was essentially the people who directed these projects, pulled everything together and did a lot of the acoustics as well, of course, all tended to be architects. And most of the colleagues in the same role that I was had at least two degrees in architecture and various further specialized education, were often registered in one or more states or provinces or whatever. So at BBN, acoustics was very much considered a part of architecture and I really considered it part of architecture as well, too. We tend to probably draw a lot more than most acoustical consultants do and it鈥檚 wonderful working with architects because you speak the same language. When you鈥檙e trying to help them solve problems, you know what kind of- you know what language they鈥� re speaking. You know, you understand the concepts, you understand what the parti is, and you of course understand construction very well, so it鈥檚 not something esoteric.

[36:01:27]

And you鈥檙e also shaping the environment, as we all know. One of the things that I might as well ask you on camera is that I often listen to the Boston Pops. And I was told that where they perform is like a shoebox.

Yes, that鈥檚 right.

And I said to myself, 鈥淭hat can鈥檛 be right鈥�. And the last time I saw it was a shoebox. I had not been there myself. And the shoebox to me never made a lot of sense in terms of- when I think of Place des Arts or I think of a lot of theatres鈥�

Yes.

鈥�how does a shoebox work that well?

Actually, a shoebox works extremely well. What the shoebox first of all does, and you got to understand, it鈥檚 not a shoebox on the flat; it鈥檚 a shoebox that鈥� s resting on one of it鈥檚 edges. So it鈥檚 very high and not very wide. So it鈥檚 not a flat shoebox, which really wouldn鈥檛 work well. One of the characteristics of the shoebox is it has quite a large volume. And that鈥檚 very important to achieve the amount of reverberation that you want to achieve, which certainly enhances music. The second thing that the shoebox does is it brings in earlier flections, which are very, very important for the sense of envelopment in music so that some of the most famous halls, and the most respected one, such as Symphony Hall in Boston and Musikverein in Vienna, traditionally have been shoebox halls. Now, once that you arrive at the point where you鈥檙e designing multi-purpose auditoriums or you are trying to achieve a hall which is much more intimate which brings people closer, you get away from the shoebox. Salle Wilfred Pelletier is not a shoebox. It has a huge volume under that- the effect of that plaster screen in effect, right. I mean there鈥檚 about a third of the room at least which is above there. I worked on a number of major concert hall, which were really somewhat influenced by the old Massey Hall in Toronto. And there was a whole generation of halls that we worked on at that time: The Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore, the concert hall in the Victorian Arts Centre in Melbourne, Australia, Davis Hall in San Francisco. And they were all kind of a family. None of them were shoeboxes. One of the things that also happened, largely as a result of Hans Scharoun鈥檚 Philharmonie in Berlin, which they refer to as von Karajan鈥檚 circus because it sort of has a tent-shaped ceiling, but it surrounds the orchestra with terraces of audience. And when I say, 鈥渟urround鈥�, the audience even goes behind the orchestra, which is kind of interesting. And this was a very successful hall and a very influential hall. So what we鈥檙e seeing in a number of the new, purpose-built concert halls, in fact, the seating does go around and it does end up also going behind the orchestra, which gives you a different perspective. A great place for music students to sit, but also a great place for somebody who would like to watch the conductor and, you know, observe the musicians closer. Every seat in the concert hall, of course, sounds different. But this- the small hall at the University of Victoria is a nice example too of a hall of that period.

[39:18:12]

And I guess anyone in your profession, after you鈥檝e done all the design and everything鈥檚 built, you wait for the first concert or play or whatever鈥�

Butterflies!

Butterflies, eh! And then you wait and see- you know pretty well- I guess when that happens, you probably walk around the theatre to get the different sounds but then you always wait, because especially I guess in musical- well, in symphonies and so forth, the critics will come out and make some comments good or bad.

Well, you know, it鈥檚 interesting. I鈥檝e also done a number of smaller halls. Maurice Pollack Concert Hall at 平特五不中, for example is one of mine. And Jacob Siskin was not overly impressed but McLean was, you know.

Eric McLean.

Eric McLean. The rumour was that Siskin had failed piano at 平特五不中 years ago and absolutely hated 平特五不中, right! Those were the days when Helmut Blume was the dean. So- and the small halls, actually, are very, very tricky to do because you haven鈥檛 got this enormous volume. You鈥檝e got quite high levels of sound and it鈥檚 interesting to control but what you- what we do nowadays, and have been doing, actually, for decades, is to have the hall which is actually adjustable so you can change the acoustics for a couple of reasons. One is because different kinds of music may demand a different acoustic. But the second thing is that often you cannot support a hall on symphony concerts alone. It鈥檚 going to end up being used for concerts of popular music and what have you. So you鈥檇 have to be able to change the characteristics. And this is often done by having fabric banners, which drop down the sides, as we have at the Pollack Hall, for example, or having sections of shell wall which actually move in, as we also have in the Pollack Hall. They have these rolling elements, which come in.

Well listen, thank you very, very much. It鈥檚 been very appreciated.

Well, I really enjoyed it.

[41:34:16]