Cover Story

May/June 2009

A Symphony of Light

Clerestory window restoration adds natural light to Boston’s orchestra hall repertoire

Debra Wood

(Photo courtesy of Walsh Brothers)

For the first time since World War II and thanks to an $800,000 clerestory window restoration by Walsh Brothers Inc., patrons of Boston Symphony Hall now can see architectural details and nuances in the 108-year-old venue.

“The magnitude of the daylight streaming through the windows was a spectacular sight for people who had not seen it before,” says Paul Giella, project manager for Walsh Brothers, the Boston-based firm that is an AGC of Massachusetts member.

The firm began the renovation in July 2009, at the start of the symphony’s off season, and completed it in 76 days so the hall would be ready for concerts in September. The company received a 2009 AGC Aon Build America Award for the job.

The symphony undertook the project because “we wanted to restore the original design, and we wanted to bring natural light into the space,” says Mark Cataudella, director of facilities for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Boston Symphony Hall was the first concert venue built in the U.S. using scientifically derived acoustical principles and is considered one of only three perfect concert halls in the world for sound. To prepare for the Boston project, Pamela Hawkes, principal-in-charge for Ann Beha Architects, Boston, traveled to one of the others, Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam, to study its environment, architectural elements and acoustics, including the restoration of that hall’s windows.

McKim, Mead & White, prominent architects at the turn of the 20th century, designed the Boston hall with 14 curved windows, approximately 3 ft tall and 6 ft wide, at the top of the hall’s two long sides.

Photos from the 1920s show light coming into the hall through the windows. They also show exterior plywood flaps that could be drawn up using a pulley system to cover the glass and darken the hall.

Sometime, likely in the 1940s, those wooden shutters were nailed in place, perhaps due to war-related blackouts but also to avoid the hassle of manually opening and closing them, Hawkes says.

“We knew from the historical photographs of the space that there had been natural light, and it had done a wonderful job of highlighting the decorative ceilings and making the space warmer,” she adds.

The newly restored windows allow natural light to enter the hall. (Photo courtesy of Ann Beha Architects)

The glass windows remained intact, but the project team opted to replace the panes with a laminated glass to buffer noises from outside of the hall and protect its superb acoustics. Workers also restored the sashes that are visible to the audience.

Walsh crews pulled off the wood boards and exposed the existing windows. They carefully removed them by hand, protected them and lowered them to the ground by crane. They then loaded the windows onto a truck and transported them to Muckle & Associates, Lawrence, Mass., which performed the delicate window restoration.

“Then we put them back up the same way,” Giella says. “We touched them up, finish painted and caulked in place.”

Walsh also added a custom-fabricated, double-glazed exterior storm window within the window opening. “The space between the original sash and the new outer storm [window] is something that helped dampen the transmission of sound,” Hawkes says.

Crews also installed an electronically controlled, motorized shutter system, which is housed at the bottom of the sill and rides up on a track so that the symphony can shade the hall for specific performances.

When the hall is lit at night, the windows are visible to passing traffic and pedestrians. (Photo courtesy of Walsh Brothers)

The contractor added soft lighting in the frame of each window to highlight the curved triangles above the windows and illuminate the decorative ceiling. That detail also allows the windows to glow at night when people see the building from the street.

In addition to restoring the windows, the project called for illuminating 16 Greek-style statues between and below the level of the windows, adding museum-style strip lighting above and fixtures behind each statue to provide soft or colored light.

“When the house lights go down, these lights stay lit, and it’s really impressive,” Cataudella says. “It’s wonderful. The musicians love it and think the sound bouncing back is sharper.”

A Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund provided some of the money for the restoration and allowed the orchestra to undertake the project.

PROJECT TEAM Owner: Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Contractor: Walsh Bros. Inc., Boston Architect: Ann Beha Architects, Boston Window Restoration: Muckle & Associates, Lawrence, Mass. Acoustic Testing: Acentech, Cambridge, Mass.
Walsh Brothers completed an $800,000 window restoration for the Boston orchestra. (Photo courtesy of (left)Walsh Brothers, (right) Ann Beha Architects)