Kingston's newly completed
Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. A joint venture between Queen's University and the City of Kingston funded primarily by private donations it now the home of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra, the Queen's Film & Drama departments, as well as Queen's University's student ensembles.
It is unbelievably gorgeous, and I'm half-ashamed to be posting these mediocre-quality pictures (combination of a low quality camera & my poor photography skills) so someone whose a good photographer with a great camera, please come and do this masterpiece some justice for me!
View from the street:
This is the first thing you see when you walk through the front door:
By the window is a student study space:
Here's some pictures from the actual performance space. The colour came out poorly in these pictures but the interior is entirely real wood, polished to perfection. The acoustics are astoundingly superb.
The ceiling:
Right next door is a dress rehearsal hall that is identical to the actual performance hall right down to the same type of polish used on each wood plank, so as to give musicians the opportunity to practice in a place with identical acoustics.
The lighting in this picture came out bad, but I'm still putting it up to show the amazing lake view. This is the rehearsal room used by the students of the Queen's University Wind Ensemble.
There is a waterfront porch attached to the building. It's empty now but the plan is to put chairs, tables, and an outdoor cafe on it during the warmer months.
There's a gently sloped walkway (off screen to the right) leading down to a waterfront promenade:
(Those blurry sticks on the horizon of the lake are windmills--the Wolfe Island Wind Farm which is one of the largest wind farms in Canada. It's hard to see in these pictures but the windmills are a very prominent and beautiful part of the lake view).