Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall stands tall at 50: How it went from curb to cube

The building went from being called “joyless” to being lauded for its acoustics and becoming a game-changer for the storied orchestra.

The Minnesota Star Tribune
October 21, 2024 at 4:00PM
As renovated, Orchestra Hall presents a new facade along 11th Street and a new "front door" facing Peavey Plaza and Nicollet Mall.
The renovated Orchestra Hall in 2014 features a new glass-and-limestone facade along 11th Street in downtown Minneapolis and a new "front door" facing Peavey Plaza and Nicollet Mall. (Dml - Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Orchestra Hall has spent half a century at 1111 Nicollet Mall. It’s a familiar part of downtown Minneapolis’ landscape now, but what did the critics say when it opened in October 1974? And were they correct?

Interior of the Exposition Hall at the Republican National Convention, Minneapolis Art Collection, Engraving 1892
The interior of the Exposition Hall at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in 1892. (Minneapolis Art Collection, Engraving 1892) (Elliott Polk (Clickability Client Services) — Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Before the hall

The Minnesota Orchestra took a long time to find a permanent home. The orchestra had three locations before it settled into its 11th Street site. The first concert was held in 1903 at the Industrial Exposition Building, a convention hall on the East Bank of the Mississippi River, across from downtown. The acoustics must have been dreadful. The ensemble — then called the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and a name it kept until 1968 — had but nine rehearsals, but carried off Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 to the delight of critics and city boosters.

The orchestra’s second home was the auditorium building, an 1,800-seat facility later renamed the Lyceum Theater. Opened in 1905, the building was also home to theater and movies. Architecturally, it was a stern box with a face full of frosting.

Originally the first Minneapolis Auditorium Building, opened in 1905. Later known as the Lyceum Theater. Site of present-day Orchestra Hall
Minneapolis' first auditorium was housed in a building that was constructed in 1905 and later known as the Lyceum Theater. It's currently the site of Orchestra Hall. (Star Tribune file/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The third location was at Northrop auditorium at the University of Minnesota, where the orchestra played from 1929 until its move to its current home — Orchestra Hall.

The acoustics at Northrop were poorly suited to the nuances of an orchestra, and there was talk of rehabbing its old home, the Lyceum, to bring it up to modern standards. The price, however, was too high. It wouldn’t have had enough seats. Plans for a new hall on the Lyceum site were proposed, and the old theater was knocked to rubble in 1973.

Minnesota Orchestra played its first public notes in its new home at Orchestra Hall on Oct. 11, 1974.

The new hall

The Orchestra Hall plans called for an enormous brick-clad box with rounded corners set at an angle from the street grid, a modern glass-walled lobby and the nearby aquatic pleasures of Peavey Plaza.

August 20, 1975 A REFLECTING POOL mirrored a panoramic view of the IDS Center, the Foshay Tower and Orchestra Hall from this vantage point at Peavey Park. The new pool and fountains adjoin Orchestra Hall at 11th St. and Nicollet Mall. August 18, 1975 Steve Schluter, Minneapolis Star Tribune ORG XMIT: MIN2014111115303754
A reflecting pool is mirrored a panoramic view of the IDS Center, the Foshay Tower and Orchestra Hall in 1975 from this vantage point at Peavey Plaza. The pool and fountains adjoin Orchestra Hall at 11th Street and Nicollet Mall. (Steve Schluter/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The design included six enormous blue tubes that suggested they were enormous ventilation shafts emerged from the sidewalk, an “industrial” affectation beloved by some architects in the 1970s who’d seen the Pompidou center in Paris and figured this was the new thing.

Reviews varied. The San Francisco Chronicle praised the acoustics and the civic-minded, enlightened folk of Minneapolis, but didn’t quite like the structure. “Minneapolis received no architectural jewel. It’s a joyless, windowless brick building. A front structure of glass and aluminum panels furthers the industrial impression. The commodious lobby spaces are dominated by these cool materials and bright primary colors harden the effect.”

The Boston Globe said: “It gives little to the eye.”

Paul Goldberger, writing in the New York Times, said that the restrained interiors added to the concert-going experience. “In its playful simplicity and overall modesty, Orchestra Hall is one of the best rebukes to the pomposity of the red-velvet school of design yet created.”

The 1974 Orchestra Hall, by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, featured such "industrial chic" elements as these ground-level ventilation pipes.
The Orchestra Hall, originally designed by the New York architecture company Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, featured such "industrial chic" elements as the ground-level ventilation pipes. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Whatever opening night patrons thought of the exterior, the big surprise was yet to come. The Cubes.

The ceiling and back of the hall were filled with enormous white cubes jostling one another.

“Spotless dice falling through a blue-gray sky,” the San Francisco Chronicle said.

Although the cubes had a fascinating visual impact, their purpose wasn’t entirely decorative. They were the means by which the sound would fill the hall.

First look at the New Orchestra Hall. The large sound cubes "falling rock" have been retained, the seats wider with more leg room and the color scheme changed from orange to "thunder cloud" black/grey.
A $50 million renovation of Orchestra Hall completed in 2014 included wider seats and more legroom. The color scheme changed from orange to "thunder cloud" black/gray and the large sound cubes were retained. (Dml - Star Tribune Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

“The cubes, I think they were remarkable,” says Gwen Pappas, vice president of communications and public relations for the orchestra. “Some critics didn’t like the aesthetics of the hall, [but] the acoustics were universally acclaimed. A rectangularly shaped hall seems to be key, if you look at the best around the world. It’s the shoebox shape, so that shape has been tried and true. The cubes were an ornamentation that allows the sound to bounce around the hall.”

Old halls had achieved this effect with baroque gee-gaws, carvings of cupid and vases, but those didn’t fit the starkly modern design.

Whatever the critics thought of the exterior, they raved about the sound, and this was the work of New York acoustical engineer Cyril Harris. His attention to detail was so keen that he insisted on lockers in the hallways that surround the hall. Patrons were supposed to stow their winter coats in the lockers. If parkas were brought inside the hall and draped on the seat, he felt, they’d absorb sound waves.

The renovation

The modernist facade, almost indistinguishable from a suburban ‘60s office park, aged well. But the lobby space needed a refresh, and was overhauled in 2012-13.

Renovations are ongoing at Orchestra Hall.
Orchestra Hall's renovations included an expanded lobby, which occupies a former drop-off lane connected to 11th Street in Minneapolis. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The renovation was intensely focused, Pappas said.

“Let’s do no harm was rule No. 1,” she said. “What Cyril Harris had attained was something wondrous. The lobby was small, wasn’t built to accommodate and there weren’t a lot of amenities. So in the renovation in 2014, they thought, let’s expand the public areas so we can fit an audience of 2,000 in the lobby. It was very focused on the public area and doubled the size of the lobby. It’s been a game-changer for the orchestra.

“You can see outside to the city, opening up the space, so that the city and the hall have a better conversation.”

You wonder if that conversation will ever turn to building another Orchestra Hall, should the need arise.

There are three possible stories for its 100th anniversary: It’s gone, it’s been repurposed to play holograms, or it’s still the home of the Minnesota Orchestra, keeping the fire of the symphonic tradition alive. And there’s only one of those options that will speak as well of the future as the decision to build it spoke well of Minneapolitans in 1974.

about the writer

about the writer

James Lileks

Columnist

James Lileks is a Star Tribune columnist.

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