The Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg Germany has finally opened on the 11th of January, 2017. Elbphilharmonie has been designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron on top of the Kaispeicher, an old Warehouse from the 60s used to store Cocoa beans. The contrasting images of the old conventional Kaispeicher with its red bricks and the modern all-glass mass of the Elbphilharmonie reflecting the river’s blue above it make for a quite outstanding landmark for the German city which lacks a distinct landmark. The newly designed building includes a concert hall with 2100 seating and a chamber music hall for 550 persons, but that is not all there is to it. The Elbphilharmonie, itself, is the central attraction of a city-like complex which contains, otherwise, a public plaza, a hotel, 45 luxury apartments, restaurants, a health and fitness center, and conference facilities.
So, the long-awaited grand opening of Elbphilharmonie concert hall took place on the 11th and 12th of January, and here are 5 interesting things you need to know about that opening:
1. Long-awaited opening – 7 years of delay
The project was adopted by the city in 2003 with an initial budget of €80 million. It was supposed to open in 2009, however by that time the project’s budget had seriously expanded to €790 million, and it was not even finished, making it a subject of legal disputes, parliament inquiries, and public protests. However, the project made it through that phase and was finally opened a couple of months after the opening of its plaza in November 2016; an opening in which the plaza had received about 400,000 visitors.
2. Grand Opening attended by Important Figures
German president Joachim Gauck, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mayor of Hamburg Olaf Scholz, and architect Jacques Herzog attended the opening of Elbphilharmonie among other important local and international figures. The president gave a speech describing the newly opened Concert Hall as a “dream and nightmare, a world-class star and a joke, an embarrassment, and a miracle,” referring to the controversy caused by long delays and budget issues.
3. Music for the Grand Opening – “Here time becomes space”
Following the speeches by the president, the mayor, and the designing architect, a concert was held in the grand hall by the resident orchestra, NDR “Elbphilharmonie” Orchestra. The program organized by conductor Thomas Hengelbrock has taken Wagner’s line from “Parsifal” — “Here time becomes space” as a motto. The orchestra played classical pieces by German composers Wagner, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. They also played pieces by the earlier composer Michael Praetorius and the modern composers Olivier Messiaen, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Wolfgang Rihm. The audience, also, got to witness the enhanced acoustics of the new hall first hand. These enhanced acoustics were the results of a collaboration between architects Herzog and De Meuron and Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota. Parametric Design techniques were used to generate 10,000 unique acoustic panels, with cells looking like the negatives of seashells.
Photo via Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
4. Light Show – Entertainment for the Whole City
While the audience inside the concert hall were enjoying the musical masterpieces, the citizens of Hamburg were watching the light show on the façade. The light show was a translation of the music playing inside the concert hall into colors and shapes which were projected on the Southern and western façades of the building. You can still watch a recording of the marvelous light show, provided by the official website of Elbphilharmonie, on this page
5. Virtual Tour inside Elbphilharmonie
Before the grand opening, people were given the chance to view the magnificent architecture of Elbphilharmonie from the inside, by the help of the two drones “Rock” and “Roll”. Elbphilharmonie Hamburg has released an interactive video which gives online viewers a virtual tour around the building as recorded by the drones. The video is available in both fast and slow motion. The tour starts with the escalator moving up to the terrace, around the building, and, finally, into the concert hall. You can still watch the interactive video here:
The grand opening festivities shall extend for 3 weeks, till the 29th of January, in which Elbphilharmonie is holding 30 concerts and events by local and international musicians as well as the resident orchestra. It seems that the all the celebrations have succeeded, after all, in transforming public displeasure into interest and pride towards Hamburg’s new Landmark.
