A year and a half after the aging Seattle Opera House was torn down, the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall is preparing to open its doors on the site in the Seattle Center where its predecessor was located.
A gala fund-raiser to celebrate the occasion is scheduled for Saturday, June 28, followed by a free, day-long celebration for the public on Sunday, June 29.
Designed by LMN Architects and built by Skanska, formerly known as Baugh Construction, the 295,000-square-foot facility that will house the Seattle Opera and the Pacific Northwest Ballet has a price tag of $127 million.
Following the principle that guides design throughout the Seattle Center, McCaw Hall feels far more open and inviting to passers-by than its forerunner, whose lack of windows and closed ramps evoked a cave-like feeling. In the new incarnation of the opera house, a five-story, 65-foot, serpentine glass wall floods the lobby area with light. To enhance the sense of openness, the wall is built with the most transparent glass available, according to Seattle Center spokesperson Perry Cooper.
Outside the glass wall is the Kreielsheimer Promenade, a 17,800-square-foot public plaza with three shallow pools and outdoor seating. Nine 30-foot-tall metal scrims reflect changing art created with colored light at night, echoing the drama and magic of the theatrical experience, another principal central to McCaw Hall's design. The promenade takes visitors into McCaw Hall or into the rest of the Seattle Center campus from Mercer Street and is located on the site of the inside ticket area of the former opera house.
A portion of the Kreielsheimer Promenade extends inside the new hall with a terrazzo walkway and two metal scrims. Each of the upper floors now opens out onto a balcony that houses its own lobby, overlooking the main floor lobby. Every lobby has concessions and restrooms, and is planned to host such events as weddings, receptions and banquets, as are two reception rooms. A sweeping, grand staircase leads up to the Grand Lobby on the second floor. Deborah Sussman of Sussman Prejza & Co., Inc., the hall's interior designer, did not shy away from color, showering the structure with 132 shades echoing colors ranging from a rainy Northwest day to a Seattle sunset. The colors intensify as they move up to the top of the building and into the auditorium, where the deepest tones create a black box when the lights go out, unlike the red walls in some halls.
Inside the auditorium, sightlines have been improved and a more intimate feeling created by bringing the side walls in 15 feet. However, the original wall remains at the upper box level for acoustical reasons. Some of the walls and each of the 16 new side-boxes is specifically shaped and placed to reflect sound to certain parts of the auditorium.
As part of the acoustical enhancement, Jaffe Holden Acoustics Inc. also retained the former hall's ceiling, constructing a new sound reflector above the proscenium and redesigning the throat wall to the stage. To minimize interference with the performance sound, the auditorium also has an extremely quiet, energy-efficient HVAC system seen in only a few performance halls in the country.
The stage area is now more square than rectangular and the opening is 10 feet taller than in the former opera house, allowing more flexibility with sets. With100 feet of flyloft, set design options increase, including the possibility of borrowing sets from other halls.
The hall also incorporates green design principles that make it one of the few performance halls in the country to be targeted for a LEEDTM Silver certification.
Food will be available onsite from a new eatery, the Café Impromptu, which accommodates 160 people indoors and 40 outdoors. Catered by The Westin Seattle, the café is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. even when there are no performances. A lecture hall seating 400 also has been added.
And the former shortage of wo-men's restrooms - a prime complaint of many opera and ballet attendees - has been addressed with 20 public women's restrooms, more than twice as many as are designated for men.
Watch the next issue of the News for more details on the free event on Sunday, June 29, celebrating the opening of Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.
