Irvine Auditorium is a performance venue at 3401 Spruce Street on the campus of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

, in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. It was designed by the firm of prominent Philadelphia area architect

Horace Trumbauer Horace Trumbauer (December 28, 1868 – September 18, 1938) was a prominent American architect of the Gilded Age, known for designing residential manors for the wealthy. Later in his career he also designed hotels, office buildings, and much of t ...

and built 1926–1932. Irvine Auditorium is notable for its nearly 11,000-pipe

Curtis Organ The Curtis Organ, named for publisher Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, Cyrus H.K. Curtis, is one of the largest pipe organs in the world with 162 ranks and 10,731 pipes. The concert organ, of American Symphonic design, was manufactured by the Austi ...

, the world's 22nd-largest

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

(by ranks), originally built for the

Sesquicentennial Exposition The Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition of 1926 was a world's fair in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its purpose was to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the 50th anniversar ...

of 1926 and donated to the university in 1928. The building was opened in May, 1929.

Seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

is 1,260.Irvine Auditorium at University of Pennsylvania
/ref> (Prior to renovation the seating capacity was 1,976.) The octagonal auditorium featured side balconies that faced each other, at right angles to the stage. The building was restored and renovated in 1997–2000 by Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates, Inc, who removed the side balconies to improve the acoustic quality, as well as to create more intimate performance spaces.

References

External links

Irvine Auditorium at University of Pennsylvania
{{Authority control Music venues completed in 1926 Music venues in Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition Theatres in Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania campus