Culture and Congress Centre Concert Hall, Lucerne, Switzerland
This is a modern auditorium – opened in 1998 and right next to
Lucerne’s railway station – to rival the best classical halls. While
venues might be designed for a resident orchestra, without pop concerts
and comedy shows many would struggle to balance the books. The long
reverberance that enhances the orchestral sound can turn pop music and
speech into a muddy cacophony. Most halls therefore have some way of
changing the acoustics. In Lucerne, this is done via a giant
reverberation chamber that wraps around the outside of the hall. For
organ and choral music, the access doors are opened to mimic the
acoustic characteristics of a cathedral.
Boston Symphony Hall, US
Symphony Hall in Boston was where science became an essential part of
concert hall design. The shoebox shape was inspired by the old Gewandhaus in Leipzig.
But copying features of an old hall does not ensure a great venue. The
sublime acoustics of Symphony Hall – in the heart of the city and on one
of its main thoroughfares, Massachusetts Avenue – is down to Wallace Clement Sabine,
a physics professor from Harvard University. In the late 19th century,
Sabine was the first person to carry out scientific measurements to
understand how sound behaves in rooms. Completed in 1900, the auditorium
is still considered to be one of the top venues for classical music in
the world.
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK
New concert halls are almost silent, allowing musicians to draw
listeners in with incredibly quiet playing. The breathing and fidgeting
of the audience actually creates more sound than other background
noises. Only in intense moments where the audience collectively hold its
breath, can this deep silence be heard. Take a backstage tour of the
Bridgewater Hall, and you will be told the story of the IRA bomb that on
15 June 1996 broke virtually every window in the city centre. The hall
is so well isolated that construction workers inside the auditorium did
not hear the explosion. The venue held its first performance in
September 1996 and now has three resident orchestras.
Grosser Musikvereinssaal, Vienna, Austria
The Musikverein, on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, is often referred to as the
best concert hall in the world. The auditorium is home to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,
with past famous conductors including Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler. When
the Philharmonic plays a sweeping crescendo, it is as though the hall
springs into life. At its quietest the music seems to be coming from the
stage, but as notes get louder the whole orchestra appears to
physically broaden, and you perceive a tsunami of sound that washes over
you from all directions.
Berlin Philharmonie, Germany
The Philharmonie, which opened in 1963 and is noted for its
distinctive tent-like exterior, was developed in line with architect Hans Scharoun’s socialist views and, by a combination of skill and accident, revealed a new way forward for architectural acoustics: vineyard terracing.
By breaking the audience into blocks, the intervening walls can be used
to reflect more sound to the audience from the sides. Scharoun noted
that “people always gather in circles when listening to music
informally”, and this inspired the radical concept of music in the
round. About a third of the audience is behind the orchestra. The rear
seats have great views, but some find the orchestral balance odd.
Christchurch Town Hall Auditorium, New Zealand
Not long before designing the acoustics of this hall, Harold Marshall
developed a theory that good auditoria need sound to be reflected from
the walls and to reach the listener’s head from the side. The music in
the two ears is then subtly different, as it takes longer for the sound
to reach the ear furthest away.
His theory resulted in this revolutionary design, where vast, wooden panels form a giant tepee above the audience. The Town Hall is being repaired,
following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, which caused widespread
destruction in the city, and is then expected to form part of a new
performing arts precinct that authorities are hoping to open in 2018. To
see a similar design, visit the 2,000-plus capacity Michael Fowler Centre Auditorium in Wellington.
Philharmonie de Paris, France
Within the new Philharmonie there is barely a straight line to be
seen. The walls and balconies form sweeping curves, and from the ceiling
hang clouds of panels looking like they have been cut out from giant
planks of wood. But these curves are not just strokes of the architect’s
pen to create visual beauty, every surface is carefully shaped to
provide enhancing sound reflections into the audience. The Philharmonie
is not a facsimile of an old venerated hall, but an auditorium of its
time, one that could only be built now by exploiting modern acoustic
engineering. As well as enjoying concerts, visitors can also explore
musical heritage, as the venue features a museum that retraces the history of music from the 17th century to today through the popular instruments used to create it.
The Sibelius Hall, Lahti, Finland
Another entrant in the modern category of concert halls, the Sibelius
Hall was only completed in 2000 but its design and acoustic ethos have
earned it many plaudits. On the harbour in Lahti, the former industrial
heartland of the city, the hall is less than an hour’s train ride from
Helsinki – and the journey is well worth it. Many auditoria have wooden
walls around the stage, but the Sibelius Hall goes one step further by
using timber throughout the construction. There is a common
misconception that the wooden walls of auditoria vibrate like the body
of a violin to create a beautiful sound: in reality, every note the
orchestra makes needs nurturing so it can reverberate around the hall.
Vibrating walls would just take sound away. The wood in a grand
auditorium is either very thick or is just a thin veneer glued solidly
onto concrete so the sounds reflect efficiently.
Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Japan
Looking down from a balcony, the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall
appears to be a conventional, rectangular hall. Look up, however, and
the ceiling forms a giant distorted pyramid covered in complex wooden
grooves. The hall shape recalls the well-regarded Maltings Concert Hall in Snape, England.
Auditoria of this shape are actually quite rare, but can have excellent
acoustics. At the opening night in Tokyo, celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma commented: “This hall simply has some of the best acoustics in which I have ever had the privilege to play.”
Sala São Paulo, Brazil
