Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

This guide to the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia centers on Verizon Hall, shaped like a cello, opened in December 2001 as architect Rafael Vinoly's answer to the dry-sounding Academy of Music down the street. It follows the two-hundred-sixty-five-million-dollar cost overrun that led the board to sue Vinoly by 2005, and years of musicians and critics saying the hall swallowed sound instead of carrying it.