While at the Alice Tully Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House, I didn’t get any of the same impression that either of the materials housed in these spaces had on other viewers, but upon further inspection and after hearing what the tour guide, Ryan, had to say, I started to fully appreciate the rarity of the materials. I personally feel that Alice Tully Hall had a deeper understanding of the importance of materials and the phenomenology attached to them. When looking at the Opera House, the viewer is introduced to the same old materials that they have always seen, marble and concrete. And while the way the concrete casting methods and the way the marble was carved was elegant, they are still materials that people have seen a thousand times. Alice Tully Hall, however, was a breath of fresh air and had a scheme when it came to choosing materials in order to make the Hall feel more inviting and give the viewer a relationship with the space. This is done by carefully selecting specific woods with warmth. The first unknown material we were introduced to was a Brazilian wood called muirapiranga or bloodwood. We were later introduced to an African wood that was so dense that it was able to be cut up into paper thing sheets in order to let light flow through it. This added a nice warmth effect that comforted the audience while still having nice acoustics.

I already mentioned the marble and concrete in the Metrapolitan Opera House, however, another material that was present in the Opera House was the Swarovski crystal which I’m sure were placed in the Opera house in order to show off the wealth and opulence of the opera house. However, it is important to note that while Diller Scafidio did choose specific materials for the way it made people feel and the way the acoustics worked, the materials were still pretty rare and the moabi wood they used for the hall is also going extinct. Also, Ryan said that it took the people vacuuming the wood veneer to the exact shape they desired hundreds of tries and breaking budget in order to get the desired shape. Granted, the shape they desired was desired due to acoustic enhancements it would bring, importing and designing the wood is a display of wealth.

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