Ae'gura Investigations: Concert Hall Balcony

Emor D'ni Lap · **Joined:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:15 am **Posts:** 587

ventris wrote:

I also see that the DRC map seems to include the balcony. The map is often not precise but that seems pretty clear. Still, it could be the balcony is not part of the performance space.

From the comparisons I've made so far, the maps available all seem fairly accurate, within reason.

Here's an animation overlapping the pertinent DRC map section with an aerial view above the concert hall.
Most of the inaccuracies you see here are due to the fact that the aerial view has 3D perspective (with image warping toward the edges of the picture), but the map is of course 2D.

(Edit for correction: as noted a few posts below, the map used here is Almaron's. It is NOT the DRC map seen on the Ae'gura plaza.)

Alien · **Posted:** Mon May 27, 2013 8:31 pm

That's actually quite impressive.

Nicoleleigh · **Posted:** Mon May 27, 2013 10:24 pm

Very nice.

Gives us a whole new look of the city.

klaxen · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 12:45 am

judging by that image overlap, there is an additional balcony on the backside of the concert hall as well (you have a small one "backstage" and the big one off the foyer area.. judging by that, is it possible that the concert hall itself is deep under what we have access to and the balcony is off a grand concourse area? (think about many theaters where you can have a main foyer (where you present your tickets), inner concourse with access to the different seating levels and concessions, then the performance space itself)..

Lordly · **Joined:** Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:10 am **Posts:** 46

After the several posts above, I have another slant to this enigma...

Starting with the idea that the 'barriers' we see and cannot get through...

may be the access to this level and each of the other two levels for the orchestra to play...top level, percussion...center level, brass...lower level (the one we are on), woodwinds and strings

it seems that the second level for sure has passages on either side to enter and exit

I still contend that the dome closes after the orchestra is seated

ventris · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 5:18 am

I can now see the Dome that you're talking about Lordly and it does look tilted back. Unfortunately even with the brightness of my screen turned up I can't see the details of the levels. It looks to me like two of them are the two layers of the foyer screen. Can we get any pictures with the gamma turned up or something? I know DaVinci was climbing over the canyon balcony the other night taking pictures as well.

Emor, thanks for another helpful graphic! Do you have any pictures from the end of the outcropping showing how the canyon balcony relates to the foyer?

The conceptual problem I keep having is that the curve of the foyer is opposite to the curve we expect at the back of a theater and if it's the front of a theater it has only empty space where the stage would go . The whole outcropping curves in the same way so the theater would have to be quite deep to avoid the curve.

The Swan theater of Shakespeare's day was the largest in London at around 100 feet diameter (30m) and was said to hold 3000 people (in a city of about 200,000). Based on Emor's earlier estimate of the non balcony interior at 44 feet and my own guesstimate that the foyer is at least 24 feet wide we would have at least 68 feet diameter beneath the foyer level.

The DRC's designation of the space as a concert HALL suggests a large venue rather than a small chamber orchestra space. The fact that it's located in the administrative and cultural center of the city which is clearly laid out to impress visitors would also lead one to expect a large capacity. It could still have been mainly a theater for the resident elite of the island. I've seen different estimates of the population of the whole city at the time of the Fall, but what percentage should we estimate would count as the elite living on Ae'gura and the other islands?

Emor D'ni Lap · **Joined:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:15 am **Posts:** 587

klaxen wrote:

judging by that image overlap, there is an additional balcony on the backside of the concert hall as well (you have a small one "backstage" and the big one off the foyer area.. judging by that, is it possible that the concert hall itself is deep under what we have access to and the balcony is off a grand concourse area?

Sure, it's possible...if there were several staircases leading down down down from the interior hallway we can see beyond the barricades from the foyer area. But then the location listed on the DRC map as the "Concert Hall" would not match the shape they have depicted there.

Lordly wrote:

Starting with the idea that the 'barriers' we see and cannot get through...may be the access to this level and each of the other two levels for the orchestra to play...top level, percussion...center level, brass...lower level (the one we are on), woodwinds and strings...

If you take a look at the diagram in this post, you can see that the horizontal space between the wall of the entrance hallway furthest from the foyer and the point that the manmade cowl above the stage area meets the natural stone is much less than 44 feet. You can see that very little horizontal space remains above the hallway and cowl to put any higher orchestral levels...and if they were there, their sound would be bouncing off a vertical wall directly in front of them, not down and into the theater.

Regarding the levels of protrusions above the foyer windows on the side looking out toward the bay and Arch, I had thought them both to be simply multiple roof areas. But on exploration, the top level is not sloped the way a roof would be. And it has been built with what appears to be the lower part of a guard rail, which the D'ni were very conscientious about putting in anywhere there were precipitous drops like this. This rim only comes about knee-high, leading one to think it was intended to have posts and rails added above, which were never completed. Likewise, there is presently no exit from the interior to this exterior balcony, so I think it may have been designed for a future use that was never realized.

Quote:

it seems that the second level for sure has passages on either side to enter and exit

I myself see no indication of openings; but the curve of the facade on the right side there does disappear into the natural stone where it cannot continue its arc.

Quote:

I still contend that the dome closes after the orchestra is seated

The arch at the very top looks like it's embedded right into the rock wall, with no recess for it to slide into, no mechanism to drive such a thing. Even if it were a separate piece, where would such a movable dome extend to? Where is the mating part to which it would seal when extended and the "dome closed"?

To me, this arch in the above picture just seems to be a decorative addition, like the common arch motifs seen on many period buildings:

But really, without the ability to enter the theater, we can only hypothesize about its interior construction.

Nev'yn · **Posted:** Wed May 29, 2013 7:32 am

@Emor: Neat use of Professor Almaron's map! That is from the "old days" back when I was still in the GoC, and had tons of "spare time"....

...Those were fun moments: Constant surveying the various parts of the city, collecting KI-pics from Skydivers, measuring and comparing buildings from all angles...

...Now the best I can manage is a handful of Crier runs a month.

Ah, well...Good to see others are still attemping to finish such detailed explorations.

(/salute)

Emor D'ni Lap · **Joined:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:15 am **Posts:** 587

ACK!
Good catch, Nev'yn!
That was absolutely a boneheaded move on my part: I just grabbed the only Ae'gura map I had in my image folder, then I called it "the DRC map" in my post above. Wrong. Even the NAME of the map file I used has Almaron's name in it and I didn't catch that.

Initial comparison of the DRC map shows it does indeed have inaccuracies that Almaron cleared up. I may be unable to make a thorough cross-check until the weekend, though.

Earlier post edited to add correction.

DaVinci · **Posted:** Sat Jun 01, 2013 3:44 pm

I have been doing some more study on this Concert Hall and using Emore's and Lordly's pictures I have come to the conclusion this can be a theater venue.

http://postimg.org/image/kx84n6vyh/

using our known designs for a theaters (very rough configuration here)

http://postimg.org/image/7mk9to5e1/

This may have been a Proscenium style theater

http://postimg.org/image/i0gi960qx/

This may have been the back part of the stage area for speeches and such you may notice what looks like stairs in center and a walkway to the right, and duplicated to the left (unseen in pic). There seems to be an inner and outer wall in that balcony.

ventris · **Posted:** Sun Jun 02, 2013 11:29 pm

After looking at DaVinci's pictures I ran down to look at the balcony again. Now my brain feels like it's being wrenched around, as it often is in Myst puzzles (and no walkthrough to help!). I can't get it around the stairs and passageways in the balcony. They appear to fill the whole interior in which case the space inside the Hall is cut in half. Are the stairs at such an angle that they continue to the foyer? Are they risers for performers in the balcony? I can't tell if there's provision for a railing.

I'll see if any climber can reach it today to get more data.

If I figure out how to post a diagram I will

ventris · **Posted:** Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:50 pm

Last evening another expedition was mounted to gather data on the mysterious Concert Hall Balcony which should also shed light on the Concert Hall itself. Once again the curse of the balcony resulted in equipment failure and I lost sound and photographic ability halfway through the investigation. If any onlooker has photos please post them. Due to my equipment problems any mistakes in the information here presented will be mine.

A number of determined explorers attempted the treacherous descent from the bridge but a grievous winnowing ensued. Over and over explorers plunged to their relto . Finally those friends of science and enemies of gravity, Morpheus and DaVinci achieved their goal.

Together they painstakingly measured and relayed their findings. They paced the lower balcony out at 9 paces wide by 10 paces deep. It was agreed that the height was approximately 2 1/2 DaVincis. Based on a average male size of 5'9" (if anyone can find Cyan's height description that would be helpful) this would put the lower balcony at 11 1/2 feet tall. I believe Len555 assured me that at that height the average pace is about 30" which would make the width about 22 1/2 feet and the depth about 25 feet (all you metric types can practice your conversion skills, I haven't got any).

They did not find any sign of an access point to the lower balcony from the interior.

After their safe return, they joined a group of explorers trekking to the Foyer to take its measurements. I trust their results will be forthcoming.

This is the field report. As time allows I hope to apply this data to the diagrams devised by other explorers to give a more complete picture of the concert hall. More experienced explorers have asserted that the area of the Concert Hall is too distorted now to determine the original plan but my hope is that, like a fossil crushed by eons underground, the over all structure and use can be still be discerned.

DaVinci · **Posted:** Tue Jun 04, 2013 7:11 pm

Well I went back to see if I could define this Concert Hall area more. As I have stated before this could be a theatrical venue.
The front (foyer side) I have determined to be 112 ft. the back (balcony side less balcony) 75 ft. the length/depth is 125 ft.
the height is 100 ft front sloping to 60 ft to back. These are rough measurements just to give an idea what this structure is,the area is roughly 10,000-14,000 sq.ft. To simplify this think of it as being a little over 1/4 acre or an average house lot size in the USA (100 ft x 100 ft >+).
1 meter= 3.28 ft

http://postimg.org/image/id8es7oi1/

This is really just a poor estimates and only serve to define this structure. Seating capacity

I will let some one else figure that out

TOOO · **Posted:** Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:25 pm

Sigh. If only we could get the DRC to open it, so we could use it for its intended purposes.

ventris · **Posted:** Wed Jun 05, 2013 11:27 pm

DaVinci people have asked how you arrived at your rough measures.

Ae'gura Investigations: Concert Hall Balcony

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