This is the passage:
In the following passage from a newspaper commentary written in 1968, an architecture critic discusses old theaters and concert halls.
After 50 years of life and 20 years of death, the great Adler and Sullivan Auditorium in Chicago is back in business again. Orchestra Hall, also in Chicago, was
Line beautifully spruced up for its sixty-eighth birthday. In 5 St. Louis, a 1925 movie palace has been successfully
transformed into Powell Symphony Hall, complete with handsome bar from New York’s demolished Metropolitan Opera House.
Sentimentalism? Hardly. This is no more than a
10 practical coming of cultural age, a belated recognition
that fine old buildings frequently offer the most for the money in an assortment of values, including cost, and above all, that new cultural centers do not a culture make. It indicates the dawning of certain sensibilities,
15 perspectives, and standards without which arts programs are mockeries of everything the arts stand for.
The last decade has seen city after city rush pell-mell into the promotion of great gobs of cultural real estate. It has seen a few good new theaters and a lot of bad ones,
20 temples to bourgeois muses with all the panache of sub- urban shopping centers. The practice has been to treat the arts in chamber-of-commerce, rather than in creative, terms. That is just as tragic as it sounds.
The trend toward preservation is significant not only 25 because it is saving and restoring some superior buildings that are testimonials to the creative achievements of other
times, but also because it is bucking the conventional wisdom of the conventional power structure that provides the backing for conventional cultural centers to house the
30 arts.
That wisdom, as it comes true-blue from the hearts and
minds of real estate dealers and investment bankers, is that you don’t keep old buildings; they are obsolete. Anything new is better than anything old and anything big is better
35 than anything small, and if a few cultural values are lost along the way, it is not too large a price to pay. In addition, the new, big buildings must be all in one place so they will show. They’ll not only serve the arts, they’ll improve the surrounding property values. Build now, and fill them later.
40 At the same time, tear down the past, rip out cultural roots, erase tradition, rub out the architectural evidence that the arts flowered earlier in our cities and enriched them and that this enrichment is culture. Substitute a safe and sanitary status symbol for the loss. Put up the shiny mediocrities of
45 the present and demolish the shabby masterpieces of the
50 past. That is the ironic other side of the “cultural explosion” coin. In drama, and in life, irony and tragedy go hand in hand.
Chicago’s Auditorium is such a masterpiece. With its glowing, golden ambiance, its soaring arches and super- stage from which whispers can be heard in the far reaches of the theater, it became a legend in its own time. One of the great nineteenth-century works of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler and an anchor point of modern architectural history, it has been an acknowledged model of acoustical and aesthetic excellence. (Interestingly, the Auditorium is a hard theater in which to install microphones today, and many modern performers, untrained in balance and pro- jection and reliant on technical mixing of sound, find it hard to function in a near-perfect house.)
Until October 1967, the last performance at the Auditor- ium was of Hellzapoppin’ in 1941, and the last use of the great stage was for bowling alleys during the Second World War. Closed after that, it settled into decay for the next
20 years. Falling plaster filled the hall, and the golden ceil- ing was partly ruined by broken roof drains. Last fall the Auditorium reopened, not quite in its old glory, but close
to it. The splendors of the house were traced in the eight- candlepower glory of carbon-filament lightbulbs of the same kind used in 1889 when the theater, and electricity, were new. Their gentle brilliance picked out restored archi- tectural features in warm gilt and umber.
We have never had greater technical means or expertise to make our landmarks bloom. The question is no longer whether we can bring old theaters back to new brilliance, but whether we can fill them when they’re done. As with the new centers, that will be the acid cultural test.
My questions are-
The description in lines 20-21 (“temples . . . centers”) best serves to
As described in lines 17-23, the “practice” refers to the
(A) commercialization of culture
(B) preservation of cultural treasures
© construction of shopping centers
(D) government funding of the arts
(E) distortion of theatrical works
- In lines 49-56, the description of the building primarily serves to (A) convey an appreciation for the technical complexities of renovating theaters (B) illustrate how nineteenth-century architecture directly influenced modern building design (C) highlight some unique aspects of an example of fine architecture (D) explain why some people disdain innovative architecture (E) show how restoration can strip a building of its unique character
Which challenge is emphasized by the author in the final paragraph (lines 73-77) ?
(A) Designating theaters as historical landmarks
(B) Renewing a respect for architecture
© Providing opportunities for new artists
(D) Reviving classical plays
(E) Attracting appreciative audiences
PLEASE HELP. I will really appreciate explanations.
