The Hills are Alive

Construction of 'World-Class' concert hall humming along

By Greg Aragon

Sonoma County, long known for rolling hills and lush wine vineyards, is about to also be known for its new $63 million Green Music Center.

The concert hall, which is under construction on the campus of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, will be completed in early winter 2008. Named for local donors Donald and Maureen Green, who laid the foundation for the center with a gift of $10 million, the center is supported by other private donors, foundations, businesses, the university and the state of California.

advertisement

"We're expecting a world-class concert hall," says Clifford Gayley, associate principal with Boston-based William Rawn and Associates, the design architect on the project. "The hall will learn from many of the world's great concert halls, with its classic shoebox shape and very strong acoustical foundation."

The project's executive architects are Los Angeles-based A.C. Martin Partners and BAR Architects of San Francisco. The construction manager is Redwood City-based Rudolph and Sletten and Chicago-based Kirkegaard Associates is the acoustician.

Modeled after the famed Ozawa Hall (also designed by Rawn) at Tanglewood in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, the 105,435-sq-ft music center sits on 53 acres that were previously an abandoned hayfield.

Project details include a main 1,400-seat concert hall with two balcony levels; a 300-seat recital hall for more intimate concerts; rehearsal spaces; classrooms; a conference center; a soon-to-be-named restaurant; a 1,077-space parking lot with mature maple trees; 6,141-sq-ft lobby area; and an open-air center courtyard.

But the highlight of the music center may be the giant retractable back door that will open to a lawn on summer nights, allowing an extra 10,000 guests a seat on the grass. The 19-ft-high by 50-ft-long "barn door," as it is called, will be made of panels that will fold into a pocket out of sight when open. The door will be acoustically wrapped in cedar, fabric and metal.

"The barn door is an off-the-shelf product that has been customized for an A-typical use, namely the back wall of a concert hall," says Gayley.

Gary Schilling, associate principal with BAR, designers of the recital hall, says the most interesting challenge of the project was designing the recital hall around another building (the main concert hall), which was not yet built.

"We had to treat the concert hall as if it was an existing building and we were adding a very large addition to it," Schilling adds. "And that was an unusual situation."

Construction on Green Music Center broke ground in June of last year. The concert hall's slab floor is in place and concrete for the 65-ft-tall walls will be poured this month with a 125-ft-tall tower crane, which is now onsite. This summer, a second crane will arrive to lift the nine trusses that will support the roof.

When in place, the 96-ft-span trusses will extend several ft beyond the width of the concert hall.

When complete, the venue will be the new home of the Santa Rosa Symphony and a new stage for marquee performers like Yo-Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis.

The Project Team

Owner:
Sonoma State University

Architects:
BAR Architects, San Francisco;
A.C. Martin, Los Angeles

Construction Manager:
Rudolph and Sletten, Redwood City

Structural Engineer:
Structural Design Group, Santa Rosa

Civil Engineer:
Brelje& Race, Santa Rosa

Plumbing:
Flack + Kurtz, San Francisco

Landscape Architect:
Quadriga, Santa Rosa

Lighting Design:
Horton Lees Brodgen Lighting Design, San Francisco

Click here for next Feature Story >>