The Orpheum

Yesterday we went for a tour of the Orpheum concert hall, built in 1927 as a vaudeville theatre.  It took only one year to build! In 1973, it was saved from being gutted and turned into a multiplex movie theatre, and instead became the home of the Vancouver Symphony.

 The spectacular lobby.

Lots of gold leaf used here!

All the railings and details were done in a precast mix of plaster and granite, ending up as a very convincing replication of carved sandstone.

The ceiling of the main auditorium, which was refurbished in 1973, with a new mural painted by the artist who did the original mural, which had been re-plastered and painted a solid colour at some point. By this time, he was in his 80s, and did not want to paint it by climbing up on scaffolding, so he painted it on canvas, which was then applied to the dome.  The conductor is the architect of the renovation, and his three daughters also appear in the painting!

We were able to go up above the dome, and this is looking through one of the holes where they have spotlights.  Pretty cool to see how the whole thing is suspended by wires from the main structure!

Next, we went into the basement, where we got a look at the air-conditioning system.  Originally, they dumped loads of ice into the basement, and used fans to blow the cool air up through holes in the floor underneath the seats.  Nowadays, it's more modern air cooling, but still blown up through the holes.

The view from the stage.

This is the organ which was used in the vaudeville shows, as well as the accompaniment to the silent films shown later on. It's got all the sound effects you'd need, including train whistles, crashing drums, and sirens.

The ceiling at the back of the main floor seating.

It was a very interesting tour, and fascinating to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff in the building!