-By Stacy Straczynski

Last week, Contract magazine held its annual Interiors Awards dinner at Abe & Arthur’s, a new hip restaurant in the meat packing district of Manhattan. And while the food was great, and the interior design exceptionally swank, the landslide complaint was the noise.

The echoing conversations milled with the music and clatter from the hopping bar downstairs overwhelmed the space so you couldn’t hear what the person next to you was saying! My night was spent yelling into people’s ears to be understood, and my voice was so hoarse the next day that I had to skip out on my usual Friday night rock band lead singer antics and play bass.

While my discomfort with the poor acoustics was echoed by some of the other designers at the event, an article at NYTimes.com today says that we’ll have to get used to the noise—the poor acoustics were most likely designed on purpose...

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