How many people are aware that perhaps the greatest concert hall in the world is located on top of a savings bank in downtown Troy New York. The bank, by the way, is still in business. I went up to Troy the other day to hear a concert. It was well worth the seven hour drive.

The Troy music hall was designed by George Brown Post, and opened in 1875. It holds 1,250 people in seats too small to meet today's building codes. It is a surprisingly simple space: a modest-sized rectangular box, higher than it is wide, with two rows of boxes on the sides, and two balconies. The balconies step back, so that there are few seats hidden under a balcony.

There is a modest amount of architectural ornamentation, including a narrow canopy over the rear of the performance platform under the organ pipes. The performance platform is narrow and in the same room as the audience; there is no separate stagehouse. The ceiling is flat, curving where it meets the walls.

For ventilation, air exits through a hole in the ceiling; there is no air conditioning. Although the hall is not well isolated from outside noise, there is precious little noise in Troy on a Sunday afternoon these days.

How does it sound? In a word, wonderful: strong, rich and clear. I heard the New York Philomusica play a program of Mozart and Haydn. This tiny chamber orchestra produced a full rich sound that filled the hall during forte passages. Accents produced a visceral effect, and the softest note had life and energy. A single bass viol filled the hall with a warm sound that blended completely with the sound of the ensemble. One can get a glimpse of the marvelous acoustics by listening to CDs on the Dorian label, many of which are recorded in this hall.

Why is it so difficult today to build a hall that compares acoustically to the Troy Savings Bank Hall? This is a simple room, using common masonry construction. Far more complicated, difficult designs are built with a fraction of the acoustical effect.

If built today, the Troy Savings Bank Hall would seat less than a thousand people. 1,250 seats is already too small to cover the fees for many excellent music groups. The balconies---the best seats in the house---would be far more expensive to build today.

When an architect gets a once-in-a-lifetime commission for a performance space, he doesn't want it to be a rectangular box---how boring! However as the Troy Savings Bank Hall demonstrates, it's difficult to improve on the rectangular box.

Audiences can't stand the slightest variation in temperature. And clients find it difficult to believe that the nearly inaudible whoosh from the HVAC system destroys acoustics. But as we know, it does.

The Troy Savings Bank Hall was built well before such technological marvels as artificial reverberation, computer modeling, and the latest measurement techniques. It is a simple rectangular box with no gadgets, no tricks---just simply wonderful acoustics.