The acoustic design proposed for a church’s transformation into auditoria

It is a common way in Europe to transform dismissed buildings into auditoria, especially for musical performances. In Italy there is a lack of concert halls specially designed for music, due to the historical tradition of Opera. Therefore, a strong request of concert halls requires converting more building than in foreign Countries. Among all, in Italy there are a large number of churches that cannot be used for their original purposes (i.e. messes or religious meetings) and due to economic reasons they require to be transformed into auditoria. In this paper an ancient church (which dates back to 16th Century) located in Imola (30 km far from Bologna), which is planned to be converted into Auditorium, is analyzed. The church is already utilized for musical performances but the acoustics requires to be improved. A measuring campaign was carried out by means of binaural and 3D microphones and omni-directional loudspeaker. The measurements were finalized to relate sound quality to different configuration of acoustical panels and sound source position in the stage. In the following step, an acoustic design was realized and proposed for the refurbishment of the church. The results of the measurements and of the simulation are presented.