For his latest trick, a 拢70m Portuguese concert hall, Rem Koolhaas has subverted the earnest business of concertgoing with another masterpiece of architectural surrealism
Many snooty concertgoers may find the new 拢70m concert hall in Portugal鈥檚 second city, Porto, to be a bad joke. Everyone else should find it a rather good one.
Architectural pranks 鈥� the gleeful overturning sacred architectural conventions 鈥� are the stock in trade of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, and he鈥檚 true to form at the Casa a M煤sica. The biggest surprise is that the interior is not like a concert hall at all. The large rectangular auditorium, which seats 1300 people, is visually open to the world at either end. And it鈥檚 not just the odd window, either. The entire walls are composed entirely of frameless clear glass, flooding the hall in daylight.
The effect is like being in a railway station, or an unfinished building where polythene sheeting is draped across gaps where permanent solid walls have yet to be built. Although fully transparent, the glass walls are not flat but cast in wide, regular, vertical waves. In the evening, when most concerts take place, they give off shimmering reflections like a silent waterfall.
On the outside, the window walls shine out like a double-sided beacon to the city at large. And that is the serious point behind the joke. 鈥淲e wanted to make a public building, but also to make the building public,鈥� says Koolhaas. 鈥淪o we have modified the elitism of a concert hall, and increased the sense of ownership.鈥�
Other architectural pranks include a genuine baroque organ, a flamboyant explosion of gilt flounces that adorns the hall鈥檚 plain, modern interior. Elsewhere the most humdrum building materials are surreally elevated to special status. The auditorium鈥檚 two side walls, for instance, are faced in low-grade plywood panels, but these have been superimposed with supersized timber patterning covering the entire walls. Not least, these side walls are interrupted by yet more expanses of corrugated clear glazing, which offer veiled views into minor rehearsal rooms.
Behind the visual high jinks stands a remarkably pragmatic, in many ways traditional, building. Right at the outset of the multinational press visit, Koolhaas paid tribute to the intimate collaboration between his practice, the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, the London office of consulting engineer Arup and the Dutch acoustic consultant, Dorsser Blesgraaf.
Despite its glazed end walls, the main auditorium takes the traditional form of a rectangular shoebox. 鈥淐asa a M煤sica is very close to the top-level standards of the most famous concert halls in the world,鈥� says Dorsser Blesgraaf鈥檚 director, Renz van Luxemburg.
鈥淏ut it is also adaptable to pop concerts.鈥� Painstaking research and development ensured that the glazed end walls provided optimum acoustics by breaking up sound waves and insulated the hall from external traffic noise. The result is two skins of 20 mm thick laminated glass, which was formed in sinusoidal corrugations that are self-supporting and isolated from building vibrations by 6 mm neoprene strips.
Externally, the shoebox is not at all apparent. Instead, the 27,000 m2 building takes the form of a giant polygonal casket that sits on a wide plaza of limestone slabs. Its crystalline shape is bounded by flat facets that meet at sharp angles and are shorn of all projections other than the wide staircase up to the main entrance.
The dominant material is deliciously smooth, milky-white concrete, which was cast in situ complete with a fascinating patterning left by the shuttering. The large window walls to the halls lie flush with the flat concrete surfaces.
The 400 mm thick concrete shell and the parallel concrete walls flanking the main auditorium make up the primary structure of the building. According to Arup鈥檚 vice-chairman, Cecil Balmond, who helped create the overall design concept, this structural arrangement 鈥渇rees up the cores and floors, which usually limit the building design鈥�. It also formed two huge 鈥渓ungs鈥� on either side of the main hall. These have been conveniently filled with 10 minor rehearsal halls, foyers, a restaurant and wide staircases leading up to the auditorium on either side.
The two staircases in polished stainless steel make up the main spectacles of the building, as they zigzag up beneath sloping concrete walls and ceilings and raking concrete props. For their part, the minor halls all come with external window walls offering views of the city and a diversity of architectural characters. A few are lined with colourful tiles in the Portuguese tradition.
鈥淭he city鈥檚 orchestra is permanently based in the building, so we wanted pleasant working spaces for the musicians rather than a black box,鈥� says Ellen van Loon, Koolhaas鈥� partner. 鈥淚t鈥檚 also possible to put on festivals that simultaneously use all the rooms and the staircases that loop round the building.鈥�
In these ways, the building is both a home to the resident musicians and a venue for classical and popular musical events. More than a concert hall, it is a true house of music, or Casa a M煤sica. Even the most earnest concertgoers would find it hard to resist joining in the fun.
Project team
architect Office for Metropolitan Architecture
structural and services engineers Arup AFA Consultores de Engenharia
acoustic consultant Dorsser Blesgraaf
main contractor Somange鈥揗esquita joint venture
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