When Acoustics First® was approached with the ideas for the Main Hall of the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage (KCAAH), they needed acoustic materials that would not only work to acoustically tame the large space, but to have some be the focal point for attention – while others needed to blend in.

The Brown Forman Great Hall at KCAAH, showing the Silent Pictures®/Sonora® baffle portraits and quotes on the left, and the gray Cloudscape® baffles above.

Aukram Burton of KCAAH wanted to have large portraits of civil rights icons, not only nationally, but paying particular attention to leaders with a connection to Kentucky.  He also wanted to have large panels with quotes from these figures.  These would be a custom printed Silent Pictures®/Sonora® Baffle Hybrid – with a 1″ Custom printed Silent Pictures® panel on one side, and a grey fabric wrapped Sonora® Baffle on the back.  These would maximize sound absorption due to all of the surfaces being exposed to sound – while being aesthetically significant to the space.  Their sheer size presented some technical challenges – with the portraits being 4′ x 8′ and the quotes being 4′ x 10′ – creating custom artwork on this scale required many technical consultations, as many photographs were not easily scaled to this size.

The impact of the portraits in the hall can only be described as ‘impressive.’

They did not want the other treatments to distract from the portraits, so they chose to install large Cloudscape® Baffles in a gray material that closely matched the gray color scheme of the support beams, trusses, and HVAC elements that are exposed and prevalent in the hall.  This allowed the large 4′ x 8′ baffles to blend into the background, while still taming the acoustics of the large hall.  The acoustics make the hall feel like a much more intimate venue than its imposing size suggests.

Randy Lambert, Designer (Left), Jim DeGrandis (Center), and Aukram Burton of KCAAH (Right)

To get the full effect of the visual impact of the space, Aukram sent over a video tour of the facility.