May 22, 2025

Principal Don Schmitt is interviewed by Whitney Smith, publisher and editor of The Journal of Wild Culture, on ‘How to design for listening.’

The in-depth conversation with Don and Whitney highlights the acoustic design of performing arts centres—a central theme in Diamond Schmitt’s latest book and RAIC Architectural Journalism and Media Award winner Set Pieces—focusing on several factors including spatial tightness, air volume, sound control techniques, and surface textures, and how they come together to shape an immersive auditory experience within a beautifully designed room—fostering a deeper, more reciprocal connection between performers and audiences.

“Set Pieces chronicles an architecture firm’s decades-long search for how to design concert halls in which the immersive relationship between audience and performer will sustain for the life of the building,” says Whitney.

This mutual connection lies at the heart of acoustic architecture. “As a performer, you want a connection with the audience,” says Don. “But the audience wants it as well—to be close and joined to the performer.”

Don reflects on his personal listening experiences, which shaped his architectural sensibility. “Before I became an architect, I was an avid listener. I went to Woodstock,” he recalls. “From my upbringing, I loved classical music and church music, hymns and Bach and Handel. But I wasn’t conscious of how music worked with room acoustics—I was only engaging with it as an art and the pleasure of it.”

It wasn’t until decades later, while restoring Detroit Symphony Hall, that his architectural and musical understandings began to merge. “It took me a little while to figure out why this was such a great room,” Schmitt says. “It was partly because everybody was so tightly packed in. So putting 2,000 people in a tight air volume is a good start for getting a great acoustic.”

From there, Schmitt began to see music not just as a cultural or artistic experience, but as energy moving around a room—bouncing here and there and landing at the listener—shaped by the materials surrounding it. 

Don points to David Geffen Hall. “The walls are solid but deliberately designed, carved, wooden walls that allow the music to not be absorbed by the enclosure of the room but to bounce off them and back into the room. They have areas that are very smooth and areas which are highly articulated; all of it is in solid wood, very hard wood, to ensure that no energy is absorbed in the wall,” Schmitt explains. “These walls are configured to enhance the complexity of the bouncing sound waves in such a way that they mix to create a rich tonality.”

Schmitt also points to other factors such as reverberation time and its impact in acoustically adaptable venues. “I was at two events at Koerner Hall recently—a memorial and a concert. The hall has exposed wood all around, but for the memorial, they pulled out the drapes on the upper level that changed the hall’s reverberation time entirely.”

These acoustic refinements, however, are never developed in isolation. Schmitt credits the collaborative nature of acoustic design. “How much sound do the seats absorb? How will the back of the seats reflect sound? What's the level of detail or complexity? This is where architects learn by listening to the advice of acousticians.”

Architectural typologies further shape acoustic experience. Schmitt contrasts traditional “shoebox” halls that offer more intimacy and flexibility like the David Geffen Hall, with “vineyard halls” which surround the orchestra, such as the Berlin Philharmonie or Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“The magic of performance is what really moves people. Not only in relationship with the artist, but in relationship to everyone else in the room—the relationship of being in a community,” Don concludes. “A great room can be a great instrument.”

Read the full interview in The Journal of Wild Culture.