The relationship between music, acoustics, and architecture has been important throughout history. In the Baroque period, composers such as Bach, Handel, Corelli, and Vivaldi wrote their music to be played in small palace halls. During Classicism, works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were performed in halls that were like the ones we know today, though considerably smaller than those built between the end of the eighteenth century and the mid-nineteenth century in response to the popularization of concerts. Musical works from different historical moments have, therefore, different needs in terms of reverberation and resonance.

Artec Consultants, an acoustics design and theatre planning firm incorporated into the multinational Arup in 2013, led on the acoustics design with an eye to the diverse range of programmes that Sala São Paulo would host. The quality of our sound, which is lauded internationally, is made possible by a number of different features: the aspect of the balconies and their façade design, the location of the stage, the absence of carpets and curtains, the thickness of the timber used for the stage, the design of the seats, the heavy walls and, of course, the moveable overhead panels that have become our trademark. Artec worked alongside acoustic consultant José Augusto Nepomuceno and architect Nelson Dupré, responsible for the restoration project. Also noteworthy were contributions by architect Ismael Solé, sound engineer and conductor Christopher Blair, and engineer Bernard Baudouin, from Akustiks.

The moveable overhead panels are, in fact, the concert hall’s trump card, altering the space to suit each programme. The ‘ceiling’ consists of 15 strategically placed panels. Sound plasticity is then achieved by moving each panel to alter the air volume of the sound while creating an ‘adjacent acoustic space’ responsible for enriching acoustic responses. The reverberation of this adjacent space can be modulated by velvet acoustic banners that can be unfurled or furled from a mechanism positioned in the technical floor. Those banners, positioned above the moveable ceiling, cannot be seen from the audience, though their presence is certainly heard.

When the hall is prepared for a recital, the clarity of sound becomes more important than the reverberation. In these situations, the ceiling is dropped to a low height, with the panels aligned at the same level. For the music of the Romantic period, greater reverberation is needed, so the panels are lifted.

Other architectural elements are equally important in enhancing the tonal, enveloping, and bright acoustic qualities sought by the project: the absence of curtains, carpets, or rugs, the type of seats, the walls, the façades of the balconies, the wooden flooring... All these elements have low acoustic absorption in comparison to the audience, whose number modifies the volume of air in the space and, therefore, its sound. The small irregularities of the historical building, such as the figures and carvings in the walls were incorporated in the design to amplify sound distribution. Architecture and acoustics merged into one single body, that of Sala São Paulo.