Step inside one of the finest-sounding concert halls in America, built in nineteen weeks. Orchestra Hall opened in 1919, built in a remarkable nineteen weeks at the insistence of the Detroit Symphony's celebrated conductor Ossip Gabrilowitsch, who refused to stay unless the city gave him a proper acoustic home. The hall's sound proved extraordinary.
But the Depression forced the symphony out, and from the 1930s the building lived a second life as the Paradise Theatre, a major stop on the Black entertainment circuit where Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday all performed. By the 1970s it stood derelict and slated for demolition, until musicians and citizens fought to save it. Restored and reopened, it is once again the home of the Detroit Symphony, now part of the larger Max M. Fisher Music Center.
Look at the relatively plain brick exterior, then remember that behind it lies a room engineered so finely that a whisper from the stage can reach the back row.