Bloomsbury This Must Be The Place: An Architectural History of Popular Music Performance Venues

Review I always kept wonderful memories of popular music venues, but until now I've thought of them more as isolated locations of wonder and magic. This Must Be The Place ties these locations in a historical quilt of musical trends, celebrities, unknown performers, the designers who created them and their impact on the urban or sometimes not so urban fabric that surrounds them. The book allows the reader to connect the dots and look at the range of these places from honky-tonks to ballrooms in a seamless journey through time and space. - --Nicholas Goldsmith, Senior Principal Architect, FTL Design Engineering Studio, USA Product Description This Must Be The Place is the first architectural history of popular music performance space, describing its beginnings, its different typologies, and its development into a distinctive genre of building design. It examines the design and form of popular music architecture and charts how it has been developed in ad-hoc ways by non-professionals such as building owners, promoters, and the musicians themselves as well as professionally by architects, designers, and construction specialists. With a primary focus on Europe and North America (and excursions to Australia, the Far East and South America), it explores audience experience and how venues have influenced the development of different musical scenes. From music halls and Vaudeville in the 1800s, via the seminal clubs and theatres of the 20th century, to the large-scale multi-million-dollar arena concerts of today, this book explores the impact that the use of private and public space for performance has on our cities' urban identity, and, to a lesser extent, how rural space is perceived and used. Like architecture, popular music is neither static nor standardized; it continuously develops and has multiple strands. This Must Be The Place describes the factors that have determined the development of music venue architecture, focusing on both famous and less well-known examples from the smallest bar room music space to the largest stadium-filling rock set. List of Plates List of Figures Preface 1 Introduction: Popular Music, Architecture and the Home 2 Music Halls, Variety and Vaudeville 3 Juke Joints and Honky Tonks 4 Jazz Clubs, Social Clubs and Riverboats 5 Cabaret, Speakeasies and Supper Clubs6 Pleasure Gardens, Ballrooms and Dance Halls 7 Pubs, Barrooms and Coffee Bars 8 Theatres, Halls and Auditoria 9 Festival Stages and Travelling Sets 10 Arenas 11 Record Scenes 12 Conclusion: The significance and value of popular music venues Appendix I: Venue Types Appendix II: Principle buildings described in the text Bibliography Index About the Author Robert Kronenburg is the Roscoe Professor of Architecture at the University of Liverpool, UK.