Elbphilharmonie Hamburg is opened
After almost ten years of construction, the Elbphilharmonie concert hall has opened in Hamburg. The building was designed by the Basel-based architecture firm Herzog & De Meuron.
With a ceremony on the evening of January 11, 2017, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg was ceremoniously opened. The building, a new landmark of the Hanseatic city, was designed by Herzog & De Meuron.
The spectacular, wave-shaped building with its glass façade was built on a brick base, Kaispeicher A, which was constructed in the 1960s. It stands at the western tip of HafenCity, the largest inner-city urban development project in Europe.
In addition to the concert halls, the Elbphilharmonie also includes a large music education area, gastronomy, a hotel and a public viewing platform at a height of 37 meters, the so-called Plaza.
Excellent acoustics, lengthy construction phase
In the large concert hall, the 2,100 seats are arranged like vineyard terraces around a center stage. As a result, none of the visitors sits more than 30 meters away from the conductor. The Small Hall of the Elbphilharmonie is designed for 550 visitors. Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota is responsible for the acoustics, which already make the Elbphilharmonie one of the best concert halls in the world.
The inauguration was preceded by an unusually long planning and construction phase: As early as 2001, the architects Herzog & de Meuron produced the first sketch for the concert hall. In 2003, the public in Hamburg got its first glimpse of the further developed plans, and in 2007 the city's parliament decided to go ahead with construction, which began in April 2007.
Numerous problems arose in the initial phase, and construction even came to a halt. At the end of 2012, the city of Hamburg reached an agreement with construction group Hochtief on a complete reorganization of the project. Since then, things have been moving forward. On October 31, 2016, Hochtief handed over the completed concert hall to the city.
