Sound decision dismays bell ringers
The landmark bell tower at Phillips Academy will be dismantled and rebuilt over the next year in a $5 million overhaul that will replace the freestanding brick, granite, and steel structure with a safer replica and restore the sounds of the 37-bell carillon to the campus.
Memorial Tower, which was dedicated in 1923 as a war monument to the 87 Phillips Academy alums who served in World War I, was shuttered and the bells silenced in the early 1990s when cracks in the tower's faade became so pronounced school officials became concerned for the building's structural integrity, said Michael Williams, the director of the physical plant.
And while the new tower will look as close to the original as the school's team of architects and designers can manage, it will be outfitted with an electronic keyboard at the building's base that will replace the traditional manual bell-striking system located at the tower's midpoint, a modernization that is considered a significant loss by musicians and other carillon aficionados.
While the carillonneur, or bell player, will no longer have to mount 86 steps to the playing loft, the new electronic keyboard means players will lose the ability to control the tone and volume of each bell because the player will not be able to control the force at which the bells are struck, explained Doug Gefvert, a member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, who plays the traditional Washington Memorial Carillon at Valley
"When you play a carillon manually, you can bring the bells down to a whisper," Gefvert said. "That is just not possible with an electronic keyboard. When the clappers are controlled electronically, they always strike with the same force."
Unlike conventional church bells, which are rung by pulling a rope, carillon bells are installed in a stationary position and are struck by a movable clapper inside the bells, Williams noted. The clappers are connected by heavy wire to the keyboard. The bells themselves are heavy; the largest one in the Phillips Academy set of English and Dutch bells, which plays a low E, weighs 2,347 pounds. The Phillips carillon is one of 10 in the state.
Williams said the school's team of engineers has spent countless hours trying to figure out how to maintain a manual keyboard while also keeping a carillonneur safe inside the 157-foot tower.
"When this bell tower was constructed, the engineers and building inspectors just didn't think as much of fire hazards as we do today, so it was constructed with a single set of open stairs," Williams said. "Unlike a tower attached to a church, a person at the top of the tower would have a much longer distance to go to get out if a fire were to start at the building's base. We estimate it would cost close to another $2 million to add an elevator and a second set of stairs to meet today's building and fire codes. And beyond the code requirements, we are not even sure the physical space inside the tower would allow for the additional modes of egress."
Gefvert said one advantage of an electronic keyboard is that anyone who is proficient on the piano can play the carillon, while playing a manual carillon takes special training.
"From a musician's standpoint, what we like to see is both a manual and electronic keyboard," he said. "The manual keyboard allows a traditional carillonneur to play the bells in all their richness, and an electronic keyboard allows the bells to be played automatically or by anyone with piano training when a carillonneur is not available."
Williams said while engineers will leave in place the ability to add a manual keyboard in the future, the several carillon consultants the school has contacted have said that having the bells played electronically is better than having no bells.
The school initially hoped to repair the tower's superstructure rather than raze and replace it, Williams added. However, he said, the tower, which has huge vertical cracks that run through the brickwork as well as granite base, presents several engineering challenges because it was designed when architects and engineers were first learning how to integrate steel into traditional brick construction.
"Today architects term buildings designed like the bell tower as 'transitional,' because the steel was combined with brick," Williams said. "This was among the first buildings which use both brick and new steel. But it was doomed from the start because the engineers forgot about two significant aspects of brick vs. steel. First off, bricks absorb water, which rusts steel, and secondly, bricks don't move and steel does."
These two competing characteristics were compounded when the original architect entirely enclosed the steel support beams inside brick work, Williams said.
"As the steel moved with changes in temperature, it caused the bricks to split open," he said.
Williams said the school's architectural firm has not yet settled on whether to rebuild it using steel-and-brick superstructure, reinforced brick, or brick over concrete.
"We are still in the process of assessing our options," he said. "However we have located granite from the same quarry that was used originally in Stonington, Maine, and are in the process of matching the brick so we believe from the exterior the new tower will look exactly like the original."
Caroline Louise Cole can be reached at cole@globe.com.
