St. Thomas Church, New York, New York, USA

Saint Thomas Church was designed by Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson and completed in 1913. Situated on the famous midtown Manhattan stretch of Fifth Avenue, the church stands out from the skyscrapers with its French High Gothic style or architecture. Saint Thomas is of cathedral proportions, built completely of stone, according to medieval construction principles, and using load-bearing rib vaulting, without the more modern space-spanning benefits of steel.

Much of the music presented in concert at this 1200-seat landmark Gothic Episcopal church was originally composed for performances in churches like this, and not in concert hall settings. Saint Thomas Church provides a unique opportunity to hear this music in an authentic environment.

Acoustic improvements were achieved, in 1972, by sealing tiles, thereby increasing the reverberation time to levels that are appropriate for the sanctuary's enclosed volume and liturgical music. A distributed, pew-back, sound system was installed concurrently with the reverberance modification, to insure excellent speech intelligibility.

Artec provided Design and Planning services in Specialized Performance Equipment Systems (sound & communication systems only) design for the church.