Arias Garrido Arquitectos   Spain   Addressing two different programs, the complex breaks up into interconnected separate volumes on the banks of the Pisuerga River. The largest, at the site’s north end, harbors the auditorium seating 608. The smaller ones contain the music school’s cl

E2A   Switzerland   The Obstgarten school complex is a typical ensemble from the 1970s, and consists of raw concrete cubes that are integrated into their surroundings on different levels. While the brief included a renovation of the classroom tracts – their interiors re

Adjaye Associates   South Africa   Located in Riviera, a Johannesburg suburb, the new library is to be a space for learning, investigation, and cultural exchange from the perspective of the African continent. Apart from the usual library program – including reading rooms and archives

Adjaye Associates   Ghana   The recently refurbished gardens of the cemetery of Osu, a busy neighborhood east of the central district of Accra, is the site of the project for the new National Cathedral of Ghana. It will complete a ceremonial and scenic route through Osu Cemeter

Adjaye Associates   United States   In the placid city of Winter Park, near Orlando, Martin Luther King, Jr. Park welcomes this civil and cultural center. As part of an extensive revitalization of the park, the new hub is in harmony with the unique tropical ecology of the site, and is

BIG Bjarke Ingels Group   Czech Republic   Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has won the competition to build the Vltava Philharmonic Hall by the river in Prague’s Holešovice district. Barozzi Veiga and Bevk Perović arhitekti placed second and third. In BIG’s winning scheme, the building is accessibl

AL_A (Amanda Levete Architects)   Serbia   The British firm AL-A, led by Amanda Levete, has won the competition to build a concert hall in Ušće Park, along the stretch of the Danube River that flows through the Serbian capital. Its entry carried the day over those of the five other teams that

Open Architecture   China   Two hours by car from the center of Beijing, this open-air concert hall is a work of the firm OPEN, led by Li Hu and Huang Wenjing. Set amid mountains, the concrete building is an inverted cone, textured like a rock where each striation cantilevers o

Manuel Álvarez-Monteserín Beatriz Pachón Javier Simó Mark Ongg EDDEA   Taiwan   In the southern Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, close to the mouth of the Love River, lies this 88,000-square-meter complex devoted to pop music, a work of the team led by Manuel Álvarez-Monteserin with Beatriz Pachón, Javier Simó, Mark Ongg (local

K architectures Sigwalt Herman   France   The French city of Béziers was founded around 700 B.C. and went through different periods in which it was occupied by Gauls and Romans, who contributed to forming its identity. Carried out by K architectures, the Paris practice of Karine Herman and J

Snøhetta   Germany   Located in the heart of Düsseldorf, this mixed-use development commissioned to the firm Snøhetta presents two towers containing offices, apartments, and a hotel, and includes a new opera house for the city. Named Duett Düsseldorf, the new cultural sp

Heatherwick Studio   United States   The location was the original Pier 54, on Manhattan’s southwest riverside, where the survivors of the Titanic disaster docked. Together with his wife Diane von Furstenberg, Barry Diller had been a key supporter of the celebrated High Line Park in New

Diller Scofidio + Renfro   China   Located in the Yujiapu Financial District of the port city of Tianjin, in China’s Hebei province, this center for music and performing arts is the second project that the firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro has completed for the Juilliard School, following

Jean Nouvel   China   The sinuous forms of the four auditoriums establish a connection with the sea, evoking the history of the city as a fishing village. Inside, the use of a pearlescent material generates reflections as a symbolic fusion of water, music, and light. 

Magén Arquitectos   Spain   Illueca is a town located in the western part of Zaragoza, and is the administrative center of Aranda, one of the least populated areas of Aragón. To prevent depopulation and provide leisure activities, the town council called a competition to build

Christian de Portzamparc   China   On the shores of Lake Tai, in the city of Suzhou’s Wujiang District, known for its canals and located 110 kilometers from Shanghai, stands this cultural center by the French architect Christian de Portzamparc, surrounded by a 500-meter-long steel-and

MAD Architects   China   A semi-transparent glass facade wraps the new volume, which contains a concert hall seating 1,600 spectators covered with a ceiling of white reflecting petals that allows lighting and visualizations be projected for musical performances...

Heatherwick Studio   United States   The location was the original Pier 54, on Manhattan’s southwest riverside, where the survivors of the Titanic disaster docked. Together with his wife Diane von Furstenberg, Barry Diller had been a key supporter of the celebrated High Line Park in New

Diller Scofidio + Renfro   United States   Part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, the Juilliard School and Alice Tully Hall occupy a brutalist-style building carried out by the Italian architect Pietro Belluschi in 1969. Besides enlarging the built area, the renovation ai

Arquivio   Lithuania   To establish a more direct connection between Tauras Hill park and the gardens of the Old Evangelical Cemetery, the project is fragmented into three pieces: main hall (1,780 seats), small hall (550 seats), and House of the Nation, joined by a foyer..

E2A   Switzerland   The planar building – a slender volume 75 meters long, 15 meters wide, and with 12 levels – can be interpreted as a solitary gesture. The orthogonal form of the plane dialogs with typologies present in the surrounding urban fabric, which is character

Steven Holl Architecture Acts   Czech Republic   The firm of Steven Holl – with offices in New York and Beijing – in collaboration with Architecture Acts – a Prague practice established by Hana Petrik and Martin Kropac – has won the competition to build the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra’s new home

David Chipperfield Architects   Germany   The Adolf Würth company is one of the world’s largest retailers of assembly and fastening materials, with its headquarters situated near the small town of Künzelsau, in southern Germany. Surrounded by open fields and at a little distance from the mai

The Guardian   Oliver Wainwright   The MSG Sphere, Madison Square Garden’s proposed stadium will beam adverts into locals’ faces all day – but critics are questioning the planning process. As planning applications go, it’s certainly got balls. Or, to be precise, one massive ball. A gi

The Guardian   Lanre Bakare   Corporation says impact of Covid pandemic has made £288m Centre for Music project by Diller Scofidio & Renfro unfeasible. The Centre for Music was billed as being an acoustically perfect 2,000-seat concert hall for the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO

Chinese president Xi Jinping a few years ago lambasted the ‘weird architecture’ that international stars were building in his country (see Arquitectura Viva 169), but his denouncement does not seem to have been much heeded. Otherwise there would be n

The Guardian   Angelique Chrisafis   Jean Nouvel’s lawyers say sums demanded from him are ‘totally disproportionate’. The architect behind the Philharmonie de Paris, one of the world’s most expensive concert halls, is suing the body that manages it over fines issued against him when the

Henning Larsen   Henning Larsen Architects has been selected for the expansion and transformation of the French Opéra Bastille, the largest opera house in Paris

The Guardian   Rowan Moore   You wait decades for a city to get a world-class concert hall and two come along at once. Last month plans were revealed for the Centre for Music in the City of London by the New York architects Diller Scofidio Renfro. But there is now another projec

The Guardian   Mark Brown   Cost of 2,000-seat ‘centre of music’, designed by Diller Scofidio Renfro on the site of the Museum of London, would have to be raised from private donations. The concept includes a pedestrian plaza and foyer above which would sit an “acoustically p

The partners José Selgas and Lucía Cano have committed themselves to an architectural style that is as recognizable as it is risk-laden. Their organic geometry, unrenounceable artistic vocation, and penchant for creating diffuse atmospheres make the

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Ignacio García Pedrosa   The philharmonic typology designed by Hans Scharoun has been the model for the grand auditoriums built in the last decades, all conceived as landmarks in their respective cities. 

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Buildings made for sound are also made for sight. My generation learned the rule that auditoria are constructions to be judged with one’s eyes closed, but in truth few buildings are enjoyed with such wide open eyes as those raised for music. Be they

Víctor Lledó   For the work process of the studio of Fernando Menis to be understood, it has to be experienced. If you immerse yourself in the way the studio designs, you notice that each project is an experiment. If you go through its trajectory, it is clear that

Ignacio García Pedrosa   Fifty years have passed since Hans Scharoun completed his masterwork, the Philharmonic of Berlin, a milestone in the history of auditorium architecture.

Con la idea de revitalizar el casco histórico de L’Aquila —la ciudad italiana que en 2009 sufrió un devastador terremoto— acaba de inaugurarse un auditorio construido por Renzo Piano en colaboración con el milanés Alessandro Traldi. Situada cerca del

Proyectado por José Selgas y Lucía Cano, el nuevo auditorio de Cartagena da cuenta de la condición longitudinal de su enclave, un antiguo muelle vinculado al puerto, y colonizado ahora por un amable paseo urbano. El edificio hospeda su complejo progr

Acaba de finalizarse la construcción del nuevo auditorio de la Escuela de Música de Hamburgo, con el que se completa el programa inicialmente previsto en la primera fase de la ampliación, proyectada por EMBT (Enric Miralles, Benedetta Tagliabue) y c

Una espectacular fachada diseñada en colaboración con el artista Olafur Eliasson es la protagonista del nuevo auditorio y centro de conferencias que acaban de construir los daneses de Henning Larsen en Reikiavik. El edificio, que alberga tres salas d

La localidad murciana de Águilas dispone ya de un nuevo auditorio y palacio de congresos, una pieza diseñada por el estudio barcelonés Barozzi y Veiga, cuya silueta dinámica se inspira en la forma de una ola. Flanqueado, por un lado, por el tejido ur

Siguiendo la estela de otras colaboraciones fructíferas entre músicos y arquitectos —Nono/Piano; Le Corbusier/Xenakis—, la nueva sede para la New World Symphony en Miami es el resultado del trabajo conjunto de Frank Gehry y el director y fundador de

En 2002 cayó, víctima de aluminosis, el teatro Atlántida de Vic; ocho años después, Josep Llinás, Josep Llobet, Pedro Ayesta y Laia Vives han terminado el nuevo conjunto que lo sustituye, bautizado como Centro de Artes Escénicas de Osona, la comarca

A pesar de la edad del maestro centenario, el estudio de Oscar Niemeyer (véase AV Monografías 125) sigue en plena forma ejecutando obras por todo el mundo. La última en acabarse ha sido un auditorio —bautizado con el nombre del arquitecto brasileño—

A las afueras de la capital danesa, en un entorno sin referentes salpicado por anónimos edificios de viviendas y oficinas, se eleva el nuevo Auditorio de Copenhague, un misterioso cubo de 43 metros de lado, envuelto en una llamativa piel translúcida

Recientemente se ha conocido el fallo del concurso para la construcción del nuevo auditorio de Lugo, asignada al estudio Paredes y Pedrosa, que competía con el de Andrés Perea (segundo clasificado), Frechilla y López-Peláez (tercer puesto), Mangado y