Worship

LDS Churches | Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace

LDS Churches
Nationwide

In 1983, the Mormon Church contacted RGD Acoustics to assist with acoustical and audiovisual design their Church projects. To date, we have designed and commissioned over 1,000 LDS Churches in California, Hawaii, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

Recently, RGD Acoustics served as the Church’s sound consultant for the new LDS Church Assembly Building in Salt Lake City. This 22,000 seat Multipurpose Auditorium replaced the 100 year old Mormon Tabernacle as the home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Architect: Zimmer Gunsul Frasca

Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace
Honolulu, HI

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, located at the north end of Fort Street Mall in downtown Honolulu, is said to be the oldest Catholic cathedral in continuous use in the United States and one of the oldest existing buildings in the downtown area. It is dedicated under the patronage of Our Lady of Peace because the first Catholic missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, members of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary gave that title to their first foundation in a new land. The Cathedral stands on land which was given to the missionaries by King Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli) when the mission was established in 1827. The Cathedral itself was formally dedicated on August 15, 1843 by Bishop Louis Maigret, ss.cc. The anniversary is observed on August 16 because the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven is celebrated on August 15.

The building is made of simple coral stone blocks which were brought to the site from the Kaka‘ako shores. These blocks and the ones used in the building of Kawaiaha‘o Church come from the same coral reef. When both buildings were completed, they were similar in appearance. The inside of the building was very stark; simple wooden altars and lauhala-matted floors.

An historic renovation of the Cathedral is now underway. RGD Acoustics is providing acoustical and audiovisual design consulting in order to preserve the traditional acoustical environment and to upgrade and improve clarity and intelligibility with a new sound amplification system.

The Challenge: Provide acoustical design to support good speech intelligibility while preserving the historic nature of the existing construction.

The Solution: Work closely with the architect to find available surfaces and acoustical materials that will not impact the traditional nature of the existing building. The sound system utilizes state-of-the-art active line array devices which control the sound energy in such a way as to avoiding exciting the reverberant field, thus maintain speech clarity. This method maintains intelligibility in a space which is still sufficiently reverberant to support concert, organ and choir programs.

Architect: Mason Architects & RDG Architects