Spreckels Organ Pavilion
Open-air Italian Renaissance pavilion housing one of the world's largest unamplified pipe organs.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in San Diego's Balboa Park centers on the odd 1914 engineering problem behind the gilded pipes facing you: building a pipe organ tough enough to survive outdoors, with no electricity involved at all. You'll hear about Harrison Albright, a self-taught architect hired by businessman John D Spreckels and his brother Adolph, and the fix Albright worked out for a structure with no other outdoor organ on earth to copy. The guide also revisits opening night, when an orchestra and a two hundred fifty voice choir shared the stage with the instrument itself.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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