United Artists Theatre

[Gistok]

Gnome, I know that horsehair was used for the ceiling of the main banking hall at the Guardian Building to remove the echo from the vast chamber. But I was not aware of its use in movie palaces [[or Orchestra Hall). Ditto for the use of straw. I'll have to ask Michael Hauser [[co-author of the Arcadia book on downtown movie palaces) about that one. Even when PBS had a special about the magic of the sound of Orchestra Hall, they didn't mention either horsehair or straw.

From what little I know about acoustics... the "sounding board" or area above the procenium [[stage) arch throws sound out in many directions into the acoustic plaster shell of the auditorium. Movie palaces may possibly contain either of the 2 ingredients that you mentioned Gnome... but there were quite a few movie palaces that were built that had horrible acoustics.

Atmospheric theatres are especially notorious for not-so-good acoustics, partly because of the flat curved ceilings. Theatres with a lot of jagged or angled plasterwork were better at acoustics, since it has a tendency to bouce the sound around the room. The sounding board above the Detroit Opera House stage is especially well suited to this end.

But even a lot of detailing in the plasterwork were no guarantee of great acoustics. The Detroit Fox is a good example of that. It's acoustics are just so-so.... mainly because it is such an enormous cavernous space.

One other thing Gnome... La Scala in Milan has magnificent acoustics... of that there is no doubt! But it does have one problem that many of Detroit's movie palaces don't have... and that is poor sight lines. When you stack 6 rows of opera boxes one above another in a horseshoe shape at the back of the hall... it has a tendency for a lot of seating with poor sight lines [[especially those one the sides that are closer to the stage). But the balcony overhangs that are common to Detroit's movie palaces means great sight lines for most balcony patrons.

The one major exception to this is the Masonic Temple Theatre. It is built in a "U" shape instead of a "fan" shape. So of the 5000 seats in the house, the 600 on either side of the stage have poor sight lines [[as do those in the back of the house behind support columns) and are rarely ever used, which is why the actually used seating count is only 4404.