The Doudna Fine Arts Center officially opened to the public a week ago with one venue left for construction.

Construction crews are finishing up work to the Dvorak Concert Hall, which should be complete by Sept. 8.

“With Dvorak our largest venue, it was vital that everyone involved with the project be in agreement with how the space finished out, which resulted in a series of meetings and color selections for the finished project,” said Rex Hilligoss, architect for facilities, planning and management at Eastern. “As a primary venue, Dvorak could not be left out of the new life given to the fine arts of the university.”

Final work on the concert hall should not interfere with traffic in the halls of Doudna or with classes because the crews are using Seventh Street to house equipment, Hilligoss said.

Construction on the concert hall was originally scheduled to be done last.

“It had always been a part of the construction plan that the construction crews would work their way out of the building doing Dvorak Concert Hall last, since no classes will be offered in Dvorak and since it has access to Seventh Street,” said Jeffrey Lynch, associate dean of the college of arts and humanities.

The Dvorak Concert Hall is a part of the old fine arts building, but that could go unnoticed to those who saw the original space.

“With the copper cladding of the entire stage shell, completely new state-of-the-art acoustical treatments, completely new seats and redesigned walls, ceiling and floor treatments, the entire concert hall will appear to everyone to be a new space,” Lynch said.

The copper on the walls of the concert hall is a main feature of Doudna both on the outside and inside, which was a vision of Antoine Predock, who designed the building.

“As with all the performance venues, Antoine Predock took the building’s outside materials inside,” Lynch said.

Predock used other materials as well to bring the outside inside.

“The exterior glass comes inside in the glass-clad Recital Hall and the glass-lined concourse – from red glass to mirrored glass to black glass to white glass,” Lynch said. “And the exterior concrete comes inside in the stained and polished floors of the concourse and hallways.”

Finding the right finish for the copper on the ceiling and walls of the stage shell in the Dvorak Concert Hall caused a slight delay.

“It was very important to get that perfect – not too bright because of the stage lights and not too dark to lose the copper effect,” Lynch said. “Here is the nexus where construction meets art. I think we’ve succeeded with just the right (finish).”

Part of the old concert hall that remains is the original pipes of the old pipe organ. The pipes are hidden behind the copper cladding on the stage.

“It would have been prohibitively expensive to ship them back to Springfield for surplus, so Mr. Predock decided to keep them as an act of homage to the old building,” Lynch said.

The organs are not the only example of Predock’s act to give homage to the old building.

“Students should try to find them,” Lynch said. “For example, try to find the wall with John Malkovich’s signature when he was a student at Eastern.”

The concert hall will seat 600 and will be used for large ensembles like the Eastern Symphony Orchestra, the EIU Wind Ensemble and the concert bands as well as a venue for outside artists who attract a large audience.

Michael Watts, director of the Tarble Arts Center, will be in charge of programming events for Doudna.

Watts said the first concert to take place in the Dvorak Concert Hall is scheduled for the end of September.

“The concert hall will be the venue for marquee events,” Lynch said.

Kristina Peters can be reached at 581-7936 or at kmpeters2@eiu.edu.

A view from the back of the Dvorak Concert Hall in the Doudna Fine Arts building on Aug. 15, a little more than a week before school was to begin. In the picture, the concert hall is still under construction. (Erin Matheny

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