Jarvis Conservatory

Housed in the historic Lisbon Winery Building, originally built in 1880, the Jarvis Conservatory is a state of the art, yet intimate, 250-seat performance space with an orchestra pit designed to accommodate up to a 30-piece orchestra. The building also contains music studios for instrumental and vocal practice and features areas for dance and administrative offices.

Auerbach Pollock Friedlander provided theatre consulting, master planning and program development of facilities for the new opera training and performance facility, working with the Conservatory’s directors to establish criteria for required spaces and determine whether the existing building could meet their needs.

Due to limited space and the historic nature of the building, the adaptive re-use of the winery required sensitive incorporation of audio and video system elements within the space. The intimate size of the room allowed loudspeakers to be housed within the proscenium structure behind color matched grilles. Additional elements were mounted on the wood-floored catwalks that were coordinated with the seismic bracing of the historic pitched roof.

A complete stereo recording system was also including in the building to allow for the archiving of every performance in the hall.

Architect: Sutton Suzuki Architects
Acoustics: Acoustic Dimensions
Size: 23,000 SF
Completion: 1995