/rakvere-com by Timo Tae

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Koldula

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sloped grass

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CONTEXT PLAN

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grass amphitheatre

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New Confidence Centre

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BUILDING AS BELVEDERE

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REORIENT THE SQUARE

Voïmla

Arvo Pärt Plaza

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b Va ad

Pärt’s music is spare and polyphonic at the same time. St Peter’s Church is austere and highly textured. Our project for Arvo Pärt Hall proposes a new merged relationship between the heritage architecture of the church, the new annex and the new landscape which forms a clear and singular unity, yet is multilayered in texture, form and space to create a place that encourages planned and unforeseen performances of all sizes – a place alive with the possibility of performance. To do this, the urban strategy, landscape strategy, heritage strategy and performance strategy are in a symbiotic relationship that positions St Peter’s Church and Arvo Pärt Hall as the agent of a dynamic spatial and cultural reorganization of Vabaduse Square.

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URBAN STRATEGY

Arvo Pärt Hall

delivery and performer parking

MODEL VIEW

SITE PLAN

SITE PARKING STRATEGY

VIEW NORTH FROM THE HALL

REORIENT THE SQUARE

OPEN SPACE

BUILT FORM

TOPOGRAPHY

REORIENT TRAFFIC

With the Arvo Pärt Hall joined to the Church and the Arvo Pärt Experience Room at the apex, the entire square is reoriented on the diagonal view to the War of Independence monument, the spire of the Church of the Holy Trinity and the mountain with Rakvere’s Fortress. The historical plan of creating a solid and contiguous street edge to formalize the square has already been undermined by the positioning of buildings on end to the square, leaving large gaps between buildings. Rather than trying to make the square into something that it is not, this project seizes the opportunity to use the resultant space and alignments to rotate the space to align with the existing topography. The new built form and new tree massing in and around the square reinforces this reorientation: the new Competence Centre mirrors Rakvere Secondary School framing the open corner of the square to the Northwest with the view to the War of Independence monument and beyond. The space between the buildings surrounding the square is drawn into the square to create a succession of sweeping amphitheatres that mirror the topography. The diagonal treed boulevards on Vabaduse and Tuleviku Streets, will be densified and renewed. The new trees, walls, Arvo Pärt Plaza, and landforms on the square follow this diagonal orientation framing this long view.

REORIENT THE BUILDING AS A BELVEDERE

“I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played.” —Arvo Pärt

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The new building sits back from the existing church allowing a grand public terrace at the second floor looking onto the new Arvo Pärt Plaza and the Square. Joining the plaza and the terrace is a ceremonial set of stairs to provide 24-hour access to the belvedere, as well as providing overlook

to the Plaza and the Square. Setting the new building mass back allows the terrace between the new and old to be oriented to the diagonal view along with the Grand Stair and Plaza.

REORIENT THE TRAFFIC Voïmla street will be closed, allowing the Arvo Pärt Hall, Plaza and landscape space of the Square to become contiguous. The resultant roadway allows access to the upper level of underground parking that is just barely recessed in the ground. Access to the lower parking area that is at grade is from Tuleviku street. These parking areas are concealed by the raised landscape amphitheatres. Roadways around the Square are narrowed to slow the flow of traffic and make the square more pedestrian friendly.

LANDSCAPE STRATEGY In contrast to the new hardscaped public square further North in the town, the new Vabaduse Square has the opportunity to provide a new kind of formal commons for the surrounding institutional and residential buildings while linking it physically and conceptually to the existing Vabaduse Park. The new Square creates a structured topography that formalizes the space with sweeps of grassy amphitheatre spaces. Rather than “leak” out the northwest corner into the Vabaduse Park, the walled grassy sweeps contain the space of the park as terraces stepping down to the corner, concealing parking, while tipping toward Arvo Pärt Hall to address the building as a performance space.

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VIEW OF ARVO PÄRT PLAZA

sound & light

small concert hall

sound studio

cafe

loading room

cloak room

dressing room

office

dressing room

instrument tuning

green room

dance practice hall

meeting room

utilities

choir practice hall

performer parking

utilities

NORTH–SOUTH SITE SECTION

HERITAGE STRATEGIES Our aim is to create a vital dialogue between the new building and the artefact of the church while ensuring its place of prominence on the new Square.

FORM The three-storey main body of the new building parallels the church with one storey links at the ground floor. The height parallels the height of the body of the church, but recedes in plan and section to ensure the dominance of the church frontage. The long bar building steps back behind the church towers to allow this muscular feature to be framed by the new addition, revealing it prominently at the west. The two-storey lobby space opens to the new courtyard between the buildings. The glass wall is a giant window onto the side wall of the church, displaying its rugged stone wall for scrutiny. At the ground level, lightly mirrored two-way reflective glass provides both a view onto the church and a shadowy reflection of it. The Arvo Pärt Experience Room is a tall but silent body occupying the space between – ever present in views from each of the buildings.

HALL / CHURCH FORM STRATEGY

BUILDING / LANDSCAPE FORM STRATEGY

MATERIALS Exterior: White poured concrete encases the new building, with tall tapering slits lined with wood. The slits with their regular metre and curved shadow directly reference the width, proportion and frame prominence of the tall windows of the church hall. The smooth concrete surface is in counterpoint to the cream coloured rugged stone wall. The rear of the new building quotes this stone wall as a freestanding wall concealing the performers parking. Links to the church are in clear glass to allow clear views into the courtyard, the west wall of the church and the emblematic Arvo Pärt Experience Room. This Room contrasts with both the church and the Annex with its darkening copper sheathing – a mute surface on a sensuous form. Interior: The heavy stone exterior and wood interior of the restored church are reiterated in the new building. The wood in the concrete slits are a cue to the interior treatment of cabinet-like wood walls and stairs. The existing church’s painted wood interior will be restored, to be seen against a backdrop of deep ochre and red – colours derived from Illuminations – that will be carried in to the new building.

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bench Arvo Pärt Plaza

box office

lobby UP UP

dressing room

vestibule

cloakroom shower

dressing room

lobby/lounge shop

dressing room

Arvo Pärt music room lower sonic space

dressing room

retractable bleacher pit

Arvo Pärt music room lower sonic space

maestro

instrument storage

retractable terraced seating gallery

instrument tuning

performer smoking green room courtyard concert hall WC unisex

instrument storage

smoking patrons storage

stage riser

storage

crawl space

stage

tech room

piano storage

performers/service

wc UP

stage access doors

utilities

retractable canopy loading area

utilities

stage storage

storage

exit stair

performers' car and bike parking

BASEMENT PLAN

GROUND FLOOR PLAN

music library

sound

choir/ seating

lobby

stage risers

spiral lift system

SOUTH–NORTH SECTION

EAST–WEST SECTION

140

400

4000

A 40 person audience is by nature informal, and easily adaptable. The café and rehearsal halls provide these kinds of informal settings in the Building, but so can the Grand Stair, the Plaza or any Pärt of the grassy amphitheatre spaces.

The courtyard provides an outdoor space within the building with the Arvo Pärt Experience Room as the backdrop for the players. The grassy amphitheatre spaces support this midsize audience anywhere on the Square.

140

400

Three spaces within the building provide for a mid-sized concert: The third floor Music Lab (the small hall) can be used as a formal closed hall with bleacher seating. The bleacher system including the soft seating folds into a 150mm deep recess in the floor, and the surrounding sliding walls allow expansion into the third floor lobby creating a flexible swing space for performance. The choir rehearsal and dance rehearsal spaces can open into a single contiguous space with a single sloped ceiling. Choir riser storage is accommodated in the room, and the ballet bar folds down to allow the whole room to act as a single performance space.

The church hall provides the indoor venue for 400 people. Banked seating on a spiral lift system, and flexible stage risers are provided to quickly provide a flat floor and flexible space. The choir has been reinstated to allow additional seating or a choir at the rear. The Grand Stair is conceived as a stepped choir space to address a large audience on the plaza. Each of the large amphitheatre landscape spaces could accommodate this mid-sized audience.

4000 For the largest gatherings the Plaza becomes a large stage addressing the entire landscape.

BUILDING AND LANDSCAPE AS STAGE: 40/140/400/4000 Landscape and building are now joined to creating a surface of infinite possibility for performance. The building helps to activate the park at multiple scales with the building and landscape acting as stage and supporting an audience. A spirit of experimentation is encouraged by maximizing the areas for overlook between the building form and the landscape, and flexibility within the building rooms and formal halls, We imagine a place that will be a locus for students, buskers, impromptu concerts and a place where festivals can plan and experiment with indoor, outdoor, intimate, medium and extremely large concerts.

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public stair and outdoor stage UP DN DN

choir/seating

light & sound room

up to tower practice rooms and music library

acoustic shell above gallery terrace

Arvo Pärt music room

light & sound above

lobby/ swing space

Arvo Pärt music room upper sonic space

open to below

acoustic baffles DN

café retractable bleacher seating servery

café service

open to below DN

music hall lab UP

acoustic shell above

DN DN

open to below stage

wc utilities

bench green roof DN

storage/ possible organist

organ UP

sound studio

roof

green room

roof

service

retractable bar DN

open office

instrument tuning

dance practice hall UP

open office

meeting

retractable sliding doors

choir riser storage

exit stair

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

VIEW OF MAIN LOBBY

choir practice hall

open to choir practice hall below

SECOND FLOOR PLAN

NORTH ELEVATION

VIEW FROM NORTHEAST

VIEW OF UPPER LOBBY

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VIEW FROM SOUTHEAST

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VIEW OF THE HALL FROM THE NORTHWEST

WEST ELEVATION

SOUTH ELEVATION

EAST ELEVATION

THE ARVO PÄRT EXPERIENCE ROOM What kind of music is this? Whoever wrote it must have left himself behind at one point to dig the piano notes out of the earth and gather the artificial harmonics of the violins from heaven. The tonality of this music has no mechanical purpose. It is there to transport us towards something that has never been heard before. — Wolfgang Sandner on Tabula Rasa Enigmatic, silent, searching for unity: The Arvo Pärt room is isolated from the two main building masses as a separate building accessible by bridge at the Second Floor. Here, a small audience sits around the perimeter of a floor that hovers in the middle of a tall dark form with space above and below. The space is designed to intensify the resonance of the bass in the lower chamber, and to elevate the upper and mid-tones above, surrounding the listener with the two voices ever searching in Pärt’s music. A place this feels infinite, where one questions the boundaries. Like Pärt’s music, it is singular, and yet there is an infinite well of depth.

What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises –and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. Here I am alone with silence… one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comfort me. I work with very few elements – with one voice, with two voices. I build with the most primitive materials – with the triad, with one specific tonality. — Arvo Pärt Rakvere panels FINAL.indd 5

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