The Shanghai Concert Hall is gearing up to celebrate its 75th birthday by unveiling a new logo early this month, just three months after its striking return with an almost full concert schedule for the new year.

The concert hall, built in 1930, became the best cinema in Shanghai and was transformed into the city's leading concert hall in 1959.

A two-year-long restoration project was in itself a historic event in contemporary Chinese construction and architecture.

The project started in September 1, 2002.

The 5,650-ton building was lifted 3.38 meters into the air and moved 66.46 meters to its current location.

The new hall is four times larger than the original but has retained its original design, with marble pillars, Roman chandeliers and others in Rococo style.

After all, it is one of the oldest theaters in Shanghai, a local historical heritage building recognized by the Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage.

Hidden in all that history is a bold color scheme that goes back to the very birth of the building, while state-of-the-art engineering put the concert hall among the best in the world.

Shanghai blue

"When I first stepped into the new lobby, I felt I was led into an ocean," said Ren Jing, a graphic designer with a local architecture magazine and enthusiastic music-lover.

The basic tone color of the hall -- blue and gold, has strong visual impact, he says.

"The majority of concert halls have warm color hues like red to give audiences a warm and comfortable ambience."

Ren was not the first one to be surprised.

When the interior and exterior decoration started last August, the workers began to remove the worn-out surface plaster inside the hall.

As it turned out, underneath, the hall had been painted blue, recalled Le Shengli, general manager of Shanghai Grand Theater Group, which manages several major theaters including the Shanghai Concert Hall.

Le and his colleagues began to discuss if they could use the color blue since their objective was to follow the original design from 75 years ago.

However, they had to reckon with the fact that blue is rarely used in theaters or concert halls.

Le said that they searched piles of archives and materials both from home and abroad.

They discovered that a concert hall in Budapest also uses blue as its basic tone and the response of the audience is positive.

Settling for blue, color experts racked their brains to find the right shade, one that would produce a sense of warmth among the audience.

"The blue now decorating the concert hall is not readily available in any set palette," Le said.

They named it "Shanghai Blue."

The color is in "perfect harmony" with the spirit of the city as Shanghai is proud of itself as a place of Hai Na Bai Chuan -- like an ocean which is always absorbing small streams -- meaning that it is ready to accept new and creative things.

"We hope the concert hall can substantially reflect the cultural spirit of Shanghai," said Bao Han, the concert hall's spokeswoman.

Apart from the warm blue, the designers also chose the color gold to provide a sense of elegance and luxury, which also strengthens the warm feelings as well.

The architects also worked on the dome, which turned out to be the most exquisite and expensive part in the concert hall's renovation project.

Formerly the dome was covered by a thin layer of gold paint. With the passage of time, the gold color faded away.

The artisans carefully pasted more than 800 thin pieces of gold foil -- costing more than 300,000 yuan (US$36,144) -- onto the dome to restore its former shining glory.

To match the blue walls, the interior designers also co-operated with a local seat-manufacturing company to design and tailor-make the seats.

They came up with over 10 models before they were able to pin one down, Le said.

Acoustics

In addition to interior and exterior design, the project managers also invited experts from the acoustics research institute of Tongji University to ensure the renovation would achieve the best possible acoustic effects inside the concert all.

The contingent of experts put forward a lot of suggestions and the construction teams implemented most of them in succession.

The construction team move the back wall 2 meters outward in order to enlarge the space of the auditorium but without damaging the original structure of the building.

Zhang Kuisheng, director of the Acoustics Design & Research Institute, said this has improved the sound effect in the concert hall.

An enormous cover was suspended right above the area of the pit and stage, which helps collect the sounds from the orchestras, transmit them to the top of the auditorium and then direct them to the audiences.

They also pulled down the rotten wooden walls on the top of the auditorium and built the new walls with the grout and sand, which can better reflect and direct sounds to the audience.

To ensure a quiet environment, the floor of the auditorium's ground floor was suspended on 24 huge springs, which block off the noise made by the subway passing by underneath.

The vast stretch of meadow and plantation around the concert hall also fends off noise from surrounding traffic.

"Now the noise level inside the concert hall is only 29.5 decibels even when all the air-conditioning systems are on," Zhang said.

The noise level of the concert hall was up to 43 decibels before the renovation.

Artistic ambience

Acoustically, the concert hall is world class.

"Except for the A-list concert halls like the Vienna Golden Concert Hall, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Boston Symphony Hall, Shanghai Concert Hall can compare with any of the top concert halls in the world," says Chen Xieyang, conductor of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

Aside from design, acoustics and good music, the management has also gone all out to create a musical atmosphere.

It persuaded top-notch artists to donate music-themed works of art.

To date, over 100 paintings and sculptures are on display.

Zhang Deming's sketches of renowned pioneering Chinese musicians of the last century, such as Xian Xinghai, Nie Er, Huang Zi and He Luting, are displayed in the corridor on the first floor.

On the walls of the second floor are Fang Shicong's sketches of classical masters like Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

(China Daily January 4, 2005)