Usher Hall in Edinburgh was designed by Stockdale Harrison and Howard H. Thomson of Leicester, whose entry won a competition of 130 submissions. The whisky distiller Andrew Usher donated 100,000 pounds, and the City of Edinburgh Council owns it. The infobox and text agree it opened on March 16, 1914. Neither gives a construction start. The article calls the style Classical, influenced by Beaux-Arts, as a reaction against Victorian Gothic.
Reinforced concrete made the curved walls possible, and the sculptor Harry Gamley made decorative plaster panels. The auditorium holds about 2,200. The original build cost 134,000 pounds, and the 2007 to 2010 refurbishment about 40 million.
A plaster collapse in 1996 highlighted disrepair. The organ of 1913 was restored in 2003. The 1972 Eurovision Song Contest and the 2018 Eurovision Young Musicians were held here. It is Category A listed. The article gives no hall dimensions or hours.
Comments