The World's largest operating pipe organ was built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair. John Wanamaker purchased it in 1909 for his department store, which Macy’s eventually took over. Moving the instrument to Philadelphia required 13 freight cars and installing it took two years.

"The organ is grand, powerful and capable of room-shaking sound, but as Ray Biswanger, executive director of the non-profit Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, explains, it also rewards a close listen, the Smithsonian Magazine reports. “A lot of people are surprised that the organ can have subtlety, nuance, expression, lyricism … and that you can play it like an orchestra,” he says.

The  World's largest operating pipe organ is featured at several special concerts held throughout the year, including events featuring the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Festival Chorus and Brass Ensemble.

The organ's String Division fills the largest single organ chamber in the world. The instrument features eighty-eight ranks of string pipes built to Wanamaker specifications by the W.W. Kimball Company of Chicago.

The World's largest operating pipe organ is famed for its orchestra-like sound, coming from pipes that are voiced softer than usual, allowing an unusually rich build-up because of the massing of pipe-tone families. The World's largest operating pipe organ was also built and enlarged as an "art organ," using exceptional craftsmanship and lavish application of materials to create a luxury product.

The Wanamaker Organ was originally built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company, successors to the Murray M. Harris Organ Co., for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Photo: Benjamin Dahlhoff (2,3)

It was designed to be the largest organ in the world, an imitation of a full-size orchestra with particularly complete resources of full organ tone including mixtures. In addition to its console, the organ was originally equipped with an automatic player that used punched rolls of paper, according to the Los Angeles Times of 1904.It was built to a specification by renowned organ theorist and architect George Ashdown Audsley.

The Wanamaker Organ console, built in the store organ shop by William Boone Fleming, is a work of art in its own right with heavy, durable construction, an ingenious layout of its pneumatic stop action and many unique features and conveniences. Wanamaker also had a collection of 60 rare stringed instruments, the Wanamaker Cappella, that were used in conjunction with the store organs in Philadelphia and New York, and went on tour.

In 2019 the Wanamaker Organ facade, designed by Daniel Hudson Burnham, was restored and re-gilded in 22-karat gold to a color scheme close in sympathy to its original appearance but which fits in with its new surroundings. Evergreene Architectural Arts did the work. Grant money from Macy's and several Philadelphia area charities funded this project, which was overseen by the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ.

Now a National Historic Landmark and valued in excess of $50 million, the Wanamaker Organ is of the American Symphonic design, which can play the great organ masterworks, as well as the entire range of orchestral literature. The pipework encompasses the resources of three symphony orchestras; its String Organ alone has 8,000 pipes.

Ranks and Pipes

The Wanamaker Organ has 464 ranks of pipes, the most of any pipe organ, and possesses 28,750 pipes.

PEDAL 75 ranks, 81 stops, 2,573 pipes

CHOIR 24 ranks, 19 stops, 1,452 pipes

GREAT 58 ranks, 43 stops, 3,634 pipes

SWELL 71 ranks, 51 stops, 4,361 pipes

SOLO 51 ranks, 35 stops, 3,640 pipes

ETHEREAL 23 ranks, 21 stops, 1,670 pipes

STRING 88 ranks, 87 stops, 6,340 pipes

STENTOR 1 rank,   2 stops,   61 pipes

ORCHESTRAL 32 ranks, 32 stops, 2,312 pipes

ECHO 33 ranks, 22 stops, 2,013 pipes

VOX CHORUS  8 ranks,  8 stops,  572 pipes

Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, Inc.

The Friends of the Wanamaker Organ is a world-wide group of sponsors and supporters formed to encourage the preservation and musical mission of this National Historic Landmark pipe organ. The Friends believes that committed public involvement is more important to historical preservation than any plaque or certification provides.

"We are people just like yourself who look to the select few who truly understand the importanceof this priceless musical masterpiece for financial support of our programs. Introductory contributions of $25 entitle the donor to become a Friend and to receive four issues of The Stentor, the Society’s quarterly historical newsletter and restoration update. Added tax-deductible donations support Friends programs."

The GUINNESS WORLD RECORD for the largest and loudest musical instrument ever constructed is the now only partially functional Auditorium Organ in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. Completed in 1930, it had two consoles (one with seven manuals and another movable one with five), 1,477 stop controls and 33,112 pipes, ranging in tone from 4.7 mm 1/5 in to 19.5 m 64ft . It had the volume of 25 brass bands, with a range of seven octaves.

GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS also recognized the world record for the loudest pipe organ; it is the Vox Maris, built by Hey Orgelbau (Germany), which produced a reading of 138.4 dbA when it was tested in Urspringen, Germany, on 21 October 2011.

ARTS WORLD RECORDS