Features: What We Build — March/April 2006

Staging History —
Denver's historic Quigg Newton Auditorium had become outdated as a theatrical venue and needed to be renovated to meet the artistic standards of a modern opera house.

Denver's New Opera House Raises City's Cultural Profile

By Chryss Cada

The exterior of the building was selectively restored, replairing damage from the 1950s and 1960s additions. Photos here by Fred Fuhrmeister, Time Frame Photography

Denver has put into place one of the key missing pieces in its growing cultural arts scene-a $92-million opera house built to European standards in the shell of the city's oldest theater.

Leaders of the arts community expect the new Ellie Caulkins Opera House, which opened in September, to make the city a genuine cultural destination and be the gateway to the city's performing arts complex.

"An opera house was the last major type of performing art venue Denver didn't have," says Jack Finlaw, director of Denver's Division of Theatres and Arenas.

The original building, which was constructed in 1908, was officially named the Quigg Newton Auditorium after the city's mayor from 1947 to 1955. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Denver Landmarks List but had not been upgraded in decades.

"Our performing arts 'front door' was in shambles," Finlaw said. "To get to the other theatrical venues, you had to walk by this once beautiful building that had become a blight."

The auditorium originally was built as Denver's combination convention center, athletic arena, theater and concert hall and held more than 12,000 people. It had flexible seating and movable walls that offered a multi-purpose venue.

But the city gradually built more specialized convention and assembly facilities and the historic assembly hall in the 1950s was largely demolished to create a permanent 2,100-seat theater. In the 1960s, leftover space behind the theater became meeting rooms for the convention center next door. Over time, there was not much of the original interior left.

Shortcomings

The old theater also had a lot of shortcomings. The seating was uncomfortable, with capacity limited to 2,067 and most seats located in the balcony. Add to that, minimal restrooms, substandard lobbies and limited compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The orchestra pit was not large enough to host opera or scenically demanding theater productions, the fly tower was not high enough to handle most flown scenery without special provisions and the sets had to be unloaded from trucks parked across the street because the theater had no loading dock.

Life-safety and code concerns topped the list. At 50-plus years old, the mechanical systems had reached the end of their expected life, and the electrical system needed to be upgraded.

The few original elements that remained on the interior of the auditorium were hidden behind walls and ceilings added over time. People interested in the building's history could not see the historic portions of it even if they tried.

The bracing system included horizontal soil nails for tie-backs tensioning against steel plates to stabilize the below-grade sections of the walls. Photo courtesy of Ron Pallard

In November 2002, voters approved a bond issue that enabled the city and county of Denver, which owns the building, to create a new theater within the shell of the historic landmark. The Denver architectural firm of Semple Brown Design PC led the renovation, with Denver's PCL Construction as the general contractor.

The exterior of the building would be selectively restored, repairing damage from the 1950s and 1960s additions. But the theater inside would not re-create the 1908 design.

"We had the opportunity to design a full-time theater, not the multipurpose room that was there originally," says Peter Lucking, Semple Brown's lead theater designer. "The design focused on meeting Denver's specific need for a theater with beautiful, natural acoustics and the technical support necessary for world-class opera, dance and music."

The renovation of the "Ellie"-as locals call the new opera house, named after Ellie Caulkins, Denver's "First Lady of Opera," whose family made a large donation to the renovation effort-awoke the sleeping beauty inside the old building. While the exterior walls were restored and left intact, the inside was gutted and replaced with a 2,400-seat proscenium theater designed around unamplified natural acoustics and good sight lines to the stage.

All building elements-the lobby, concessions and restroom areas, dressing rooms for performers, loading dock, seating areas-were addressed in the renovation. Building the theater from the ground up inside also solved the code and accessibility problems that spurred the renovation in the first place.

Acoustic Quality

Still, the Ellie's designers had even higher expectations. "From the beginning, we set out to design one of the top 10 opera houses in the world, and we never wavered from that," says Semple Brown designer Chris Wineman.

The acoustic performance of the main hall was a primary design factor in the choice of construction materials. The curved drum wall at the back of the theater was built with poured-in-place concrete, much of it left as exposed finish to provide an acoustical mass separating the theater space from the public lobbies.

Good sound isolation keeps traffic noise outside and circulates natural sound inside so the performers' words and music reach the audience at just the right level.

The seating levels from the orchestra to the upper balcony were formed in the shape of complex curves. This design allows for better sight lines-no seat is farther than 112 ft from the stage-as well as enriched sound quality. People speaking at normal voice levels on stage can be heard clearly even in the theater's back row.

Denver's M-E Engineers designed an HVAC system for the Ellie that has low-air velocities and large ducts to reduce noise. Silencers, which absorb sound in the air ducts, were used on all supply systems so fan noise would not filter into the auditorium. For more efficiency, ductwork was designed to "self-balance" wherever possible, reducing the need for balance dampers.

Next on the list was creating a timeless but not necessarily classic design. "Most other opera houses designed recently take a more literal approach to interpreting a classic look," Lucking says. "We looked at how those classic designs work and then designed a building that does those things without reproducing the classics."

That includes the fact that most classic opera houses incorporate columns. "The purpose of those columns is to bring one's eyes to the ground," Lucking adds. "We used other design elements to do that. We don't actually have a single column in the theater." The result of this approach is an opera house with clean, modern lines that don't compromise its visual impact.

The design team created audience amenities that include increased leg room, more restrooms, a much larger lobby, premium sight lines for all patrons, enhanced refreshment areas and some handy technology for more casual theatergoers.

"You say 'opera house' and people think of a place with a sense of grandeur," Lucking says. "We've created that sense of grandeur, and we've included the other element that people associate with an opera house-red seats."

All levels of the lobby can be viewed from the stairs, crafted from terrazzo and glass. Photo by Fred Fuhrmeister, Time Frame Photography

Like all the other elements in the Ellie, the seats are functional as well as attractive. Each audience member has his or her own electronic seat-back text delivery system that allows for translation or clarification of what is happening on stage. There's also an average of 37 in. between the backs of chairs, providing for plenty of leg room.

In the lobby, two sets of majestic stairs descend from the historic corners of the building, encircling the donor recognition walls. All levels of the lobby can be viewed from the stairs, which were crafted from terrazzo and glass handrails. The three bars on different levels feature cherry wood, dramatic lighting and backlit glass displays.

Building a Ship in a Bottle

Because its interior was completely rebuilt while its historic exterior walls were left standing, the building's renovation has often been likened to "building a ship in a bottle."

"The challenges started right from the start," says Larry Kemp, who oversaw the project for Denver's Martin/Martin Inc., the structural engineer. "We had to figure out how to keep four 2-ft-thick, 85-ft-tall, unreinforced brick walls standing while we were demolishing the whole interior of the building."

The walls are actually 70 ft tall, but the new structure required digging 3 ft deeper than the existing 12-ft basement. The system for bracing the building included several components. Horizontal soil nails were used for tie-backs that tensioned against flat steel plates to stabilize the below-grade sections of the perimeter walls. That helped support them against vibrations from the heavy downtown traffic just outside the auditorium.

Permanent construction of the new foundation walls used cantilevered piers, post-tensioned tie-downs (vertical micropiles) and retaining grade beams that stabilized the existing building footings undermined by the additional depth required for the new structure.

Aircraft cable and tube steel bracing above ground level stabilized the above-grade section of all perimeter walls from the wind. All bracing fell within the space occupied by the existing seven pairs of lattice columns.
Trey Nobles, PCL's project manager, kept an eye on every sliver of space. "It was truly zero tolerance," he says. "Usually, we have inches to spare, but here it was down to 1/8 of an inch."

PCL worked on a CM/GC contract through a 2,400 construction-activity schedule to build the design within the gutted shell.

Audience Amenities

"The entire building was built for customer service and comfort," Finlaw says. The project boosted the space in the auditorium from 105,000 to 280,000 sq ft.; increased the number of seats from 2,067 to 2,268, including the addition of 21 private boxes; and doubled the size of the lobby. The new theater also has a deeper stage and room for 110 musicians in the orchestra pit, where previously there had been room for only 30.

The mezzanine, which looks straight at first glance, actually is warped to produce better sight lines. The orchestra has two pit lifts and additional seats on movable "wagons" stored below the orchestra level seating and rolled into place when the orchestra platforms are not needed for musicians.

"You look around here and it looks clean and simple. But there was nothing simple about it," Nobles says. "When audiences come in, they don't notice all the construction details that went into this theater. They just walk away thinking what a great place it is to see the performing arts."