Dieterle Vocal Arts Center

The Dieterle Vocal Arts building was built by Garber and Woodward in 1910 and functioned as the Schmidlapp Gymnasium complete with a Natorium in the basement. In the renovation of the CCM village, Cobb renovated the acoustics of the building for vocal pitches, he also added many studios and transformed the basement into a complete staging area for operas. Jacob Schmidlapp believed one should not die with a huge fortune. He thought is disgraceful if one did not give away a significant amount of money yearly, especially if they were lucky enough to live into their sixties. Charlotte (his daughter) was killed in a freak car crash when touring France at the age of 19. In separate accidents his wife and other daughter were killed as well. After the deaths, Schmidlapp decided to fight to better the individual lives of women as a whole and began memorializing his lost loved ones with philanthropic endeavors.^[1] He built a dorm at the Conservatory of Music before the big merge, then when UC came into the picture and there was already a female gymnasium donated by him on campus, the powers that be thought it would be a good idea to transform the gym into a Vocal Arts Center because of his past donations and participation in the arts.

Dieterle Vocal Arts Building 1975, Archives and Rare Books Library at the University of Cincinnati

^[1] "Charlotte Schmidlapp Scholarship Fund." YWCA. Web. <http://www.ywca.org/site/pp.asp?c=agLGKXNOE&b=3989637>.