Auditorium and Music Hall, Music hall in Portland, United States.

The Auditorium and Music Hall is a four-story building on the east side of SW Third Avenue in downtown Portland, between Salmon and Taylor Streets. Its Romanesque Revival facade, influenced by Louis Sullivan and Henry Hobson Richardson, shows terra cotta arch capitals on the third floor and geometric plant motifs on the first-level stone capitals. Timber trusses span the full width, giving the concert room a cove ceiling 27 feet high, 42 feet wide and 72 feet long.

Frederick Manson White, born in Derby in 1863 and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, received the Auditorium and Music Hall as his first independent commission; it was built for Emil C. Jorgensen and finished in 1895. The first floor held a liquor wholesale business, the second a dance hall and the third a small concert hall. Later owners turned the third floor into apartments and the dance hall into a boxing gymnasium, a use that lasted until 1960. In February 1970 the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Frederick Manson White designed the building with an auditorium and a dance hall on purpose, to serve the social life of 1890s Portland. By 1890 the city had six sizable theaters seating about 6,200 in total, and smaller venues like this one hosted lesser performances. Its upper floors held a dance hall and a small concert room, uses a visitor can still trace in the layout.

The building is accessible year-round and located near public transportation options in Portland. It's best to view the facade from a distance to fully appreciate the geometric patterns and terra cotta detailing.

The building's foundation combines pilings, concrete footings, and brick piers, which was an innovative solution for its time. This construction method allowed the weight of the four-story structure to be distributed efficiently.