Symphony Hall by Norbert Rosseau

First Shown in December, 1996

Norbert Rosseau (1907 - 1975) was a well known Belgian composer.  Both Norbert, and his father Max, were Anchor builders.  Their Anchor stone collection forms the basis of the permanent Anchor collection in the Toy Museum (Speelgoedmuseum) in Mechelen, Belgium.  In honor of the special Anchor exhibition in that museum, I have chosen a design which I took from 'T Trojaanse Hobbelpaard (The Trojan Hobbyhorse), a museum publication, of June 1991.  The picture is identified as "Church from the Photo Album of Norbert Rosseau".  The view is almost exactly as shown in the first picture.  As I began to build, the Anchor stones almost shouted to me: "I am a symphony hall, not a church."  So I followed the stones' advice and built the building the way it wanted to be built. 

One of the main reasons I chose to rebuild this design was the very interesting arch style on the front of the building.  I was curious whether I could build it without any glue, double sticky tape, etc.  Yes, I could and did.

The rear view of most symphony halls is uninteresting.  The slope of the roof is, in my opinion, incompatible with the use of this building as a church.  If you check the first photograph, you will see that the rear of the building is "forced" by the clearly visible arc and the limited number of shapes of the octagonal roof stones in Anchor.

The interior of the building is shown.  I could not find any way to avoid the six columns, but I am old enough to remember the seat behind columns at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  The beginning of the sound stage can be seen, along with the first layer of the outer wall.  Between these two walls is the orchestra assembly space.  For scale, the large colored floor 'tiles' are one inch squares and the smaller yellow and red squares in the entry hall are 1/2 inch squares.  Hard to see, but there are ticket windows at each end of the entry hall.

A close up view of the sound stage.  The roof of the sound stage was continued up in a slope to meet the red top beam already in place.  The orchestra can enter and exit through four openings (two on each side) from either side of the two baffles (perhaps the left baffle is more clearly seen in the picture above this one).  I think that the acoustics would be quite good, even for a soloist.  Norbert Rosseau was also a violinist, so he would have appreciated these details.

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A few of you may wonder what I look like.  Here is a picture from this Christmas.  This picture is about as good as they get.

For those who are really interested in Anchor stones, I have written a book about them.  (I just got tired of either looking up the same information again and again, or trusting my memory on specific details such as dates and names.)  It is expensive, $70 (or 100 DM) ppd, because I print it myself on my PC and color ink is expensive.  The book undoubtedly contains far more information about Anchor stones and sets, the Richter company, etc. than you'll ever want to read.  This book is a lot of work to print (I print about a dozen at a time, in either English or German), so please don't think I am urging you to buy one.

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