Orpheus in Nashville

ICA&CA Tennessee Chapter member Brent Baldwin wrote to us of the opening gala for one of the most important new buildings in America, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee. The center was designed by ICA&CA Board of Directors member David M. Schwarz.

On September 7, 2006, the Tennessee Chapter hosted an event at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville's new symphony hall designed by ICA&CA board member David M. Schwarz. The event featured guided tours of the building (given by Mr. Schwarz and by members of the acoustics firm Akustiks) followed by an illustrated lecture by Mr. Schwarz. He donated his time as a way to help kick off the chapter, and it was splendidly successful both as a membership drive and as a fundraiser. It was attended by 65 Tennessee architects, designers, artists, and aficionados. A wine and cheese reception followed the lecture.

Local architect Eric Stengel was the master of ceremonies and ICA&CA Fellow John Woodrow Kelley, a native Tennessean, gave the audience a brief overview of the ICA&CA and its work.

Mr. Schwarz gave the audience an overview of the design process that resulted in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. To achieve the lofty goals set for the project (which included a 300-year life span, a world-class venue with superior acoustics, and timeless architecture), he created a classically inspired building that drew from many of the world's greatest symphony halls as well as from Nashville's most beloved buildings.

The audience also learned that Mr. Schwarz gave his friend Paul Scarbrough of Akustiks two tall orders: One, he wanted the interior lighting to be supplemented by natural light from clerestory windows, in spite of the fact that the hall would have to be completely isolated from exterior noises like thunder, aircraft, and traffic. (Mr. Scarbrough, during the Q&A session following Mr. Schwarz's lecture, said that he was convinced of the windows' importance during the design team's visit to the Grosser Tonhallesaal, an 1895 symphony hall in Zurich. They listened to a concert in the hall while the fading glow of the sunset shone in from arched clerestory windows.)

The second order was that the hall's acoustics should deliver the music without the aid of a canopy. No hall has been built in the last several decades without a canopy perched above the orchestra. When told that it may not be possible, Mr. Schwarz said that they built halls without canopies for 300 years, so why not? Akustiks went to work and the result is a symphony hall with the openness of being canopy-free. Most important, the early reports are confirming that the Schermerhorn will deliver the superb sound quality yearned for by the Nashville Symphony.

Anticipating the tired objection that his architecture is more about archaeology than architecture, Mr. Schwarz showed how the Schermerhorn's design looked backward as well as forward, saying, "Timeless architecture can move the architectural continuum forward without copying it.

David M. Schwarz/Architectural Services was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1976. The firm opened a second office, in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1985. Mr. Schwarz himself received a B.A. at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. St. John's is a unique school based on the ideal of liberal learning through a "Great Books" curriculum from Homer to Heidegger. Anyone who goes on from St. John's to an architectural career is unlikely to be a run-of-the-mill architect. Schwarz then received his M.A. in architecture from Yale, where he later triumphantly returned to design the Environmental Science Center in 2001.

The Great Books approach to learning emphasizes the "great conversation" among the leading thinkers and writers of the last 2800 or so years. The firm says of its work:

Appropriateness to context is a fundamental tenet of our design philosophy. We never see our buildings as isolated independent objects, but rather as interactive parts of a larger whole. We design buildings and places for the people who use them; the active users who live, work, study, play or travel through them, and the passive users who may walk or drive by during the course of their daily lives. We strive to craft welcoming, well-proportioned spaces with an appropriate scale and level of detail such that the building responds to and engages directly with the people who use it.

It's easy to see the ideal of liberal learning at work in the built environment.

Some of Schwarz's remarkable output includes the American Airlines Center (2001) in Dallas, home to Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks; the Bass Performance Hall (1996) in Fort Worth; the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame (2002) in Fort Worth; the 1201 F Street office complex (1990) in Washington, D.C.; and the Bank One Building (2003) in Fort Worth;

The critical reaction to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center has been generally enthusiastic. Granted, there's been the usual carping from some architects and critics for whom all contemporary classicism is "kitsch."

Christine Kreyling, in a nicely written piece for the Nashville Scene web site, says:

It would be safe to predict that the new building will be overwhelmingly popular with the community at large, but members of the local design community are giving the Schermerhorn a cooler reception because…it’s just so Classical.

After praising the workmanship, acoustics, plan, and outdoor public spaces of the center, Kreyling writes:

Less fortunate is the sculptural program. In particular, the Orpheus and Eurydice myth enacted in the pediment over the entrance looks too squishy-soft Romantic and lacks the invigorating sternness of Greece’s golden age.

In fact, she is confusing the "invigorating sternness" of the American Greek revival (so amply evidenced in Nashville) with the exuberant ornamentalism of the ancient Greeks themselves. American architects of the 19th century were moved by the romantic solemnity of Greek ruins--thus our ubiquity of pediments with raking cornices that frame...nothing. What Schwarz has done with his Orpheus and Eurydice is to restore an authentically ancient touch, in so doing not to ape the great Greek revival buildings of Nashville but, as it were, to enter into a historical conversation with them.

The most perplexing comment probably comes from Bernard Holland in this piece from the New York Times:

What made Nashville famous was not ancient Greekness but places like Tootsie’s with its splendid invitation to “come on down for a holler and a swaller.”

I don't think so. Nashville is rightly proud of its status as the country-music capital. But to reduce that city to just that heritage would be an amputation of a rich history of which, it might be said, "ancient Greekness" is indeed a chief defining element. The great American architect William Strickland is interred within one of his greatest buildings, the Tennessee State Capitol.

Orpheus and Eurydice happily share this city with Flatt and Scruggs.

Comments

[Brent Baldwin]

I wanted to add that the three photos of the Schermerhorn are credited to photographer Anita Blake.

[Francis Morrone (aka Classicist)]

Thanks Brent. In Blogworld photo credits often fall by the wayside, and they never should.