Elbphilharmonie

Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
Evgenii Salganik, CC BY 4.0

The concert hall in Hamburg’s harbour is built on top of an old brick warehouse. Above it rises a glass volume with a wave-shaped roof and windows that bulge like drops. At its heart lies the Grand Hall, a vineyard hall where the audience sits around the orchestra.

Kaispeicher A, a cocoa warehouse from the 1960s, was standing empty when the idea arose of building a concert hall on top of it. Herzog & de Meuron were given the commission, and construction began in 2007. It became one of Germany’s most controversial projects: costs rose from under 80 million to around 800 million euros, and the opening was delayed until January 2017.

The Grand Hall was designed together with the acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, with the audience on terraces around the stage and walls of some 10,000 gypsum panels, each milled with a unique pattern to diffuse the sound. Between the warehouse and the glass building lies a plaza open to all, with views over the harbour. The building has become Hamburg’s new symbol.