A UIHistories Project by Kalev Leetaru
 Smith HallThe cornerstone of the Tina Weedon Smith Memorial Building was laid November 9, 1917. The stone itself was laid by Captain Thomas J. Smith, who had funded the $215,000 building in honor of his wife. Designed in the Beaux Arts style, a massive performance hall seats 650 on the house floor and 450 in the upper balcony. The acoustics of the hall were very precisely controlled, with a "period of reverberation of 1.75 seconds" when the hall was filled to capacity and "provision[s] for reducing the period of reverberation when there is no audience". Practice rooms are abundant, with 7 studios and 2 classrooms on the first floor and 11 studios, 49 practice rooms, and a 200-person lecture hall on the second floor. The third floor houses an additional 47 practice rooms. Smith Hall has the distinction of being the first building on campus to be wholly funded by private donations, paving the way for later buildings such as the Beckman Institute. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
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