Rotch Travel Document (2012)

ROTCH TRAVELLING FELLOWSHIP

[2011-2012]

COMMERCIALIZED CULTURE Urban Performance space in a post-Bilbao Europe

COMMERCIALIZED CULTURE

introduction OPPORTUNITIES in URBAN REGENERATIon AND THE EMERGENCE OF NEW CULTURAL CENTERS HAVE HAD AN UNBROKEN RELATIONSHIP SINCE THE END OF THE SECOND MILLENNIUM WITH THE ARRIVAL OF the ENTHUSIAST ‘BILBAO’ CRAZE AND an increasingly expanding IMAGE-HUNGRY GLOBAL CULTURE. From the moment Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum was unveiled

Over fifteen years have passed since Bilbao grabbed headlines from

along the banks of the Nervión river in 1997, the term “Bilbao Effect”

all over the world. In those years, the population of urban centers

emerged as a battle cry from civic leaders, architects and city planners

around the world exceeded those of rural areas and the tourism indus-

intent on revitalizing dilapidated city centers and elevating their status

try was surging with no sign of abating, leading to numerous cities of

in a competitive global market. In fact, there was reason for elated opti-

assorted scale to invest heavily in their cultural infrastructure during the

mism, as market research showed Gehry’s new building bringing in an

economic ‘boom years’, spearheaded by substantial performing-arts

extra 3 million visitors a year to the city, with additional tax revenue and

complexes (theaters, concert halls and opera houses) and leading to

corporate sponsorship invading the flourishing post-industrial region.

a total metamorphic shift in the live-art industry with efforts to combat

However, the success of the project would not rely on a single object,

inclusion, globalization and a dwindling audience. Architects had to

but on an inspiring urban strategy that cleared the city’s waterfront of

balance between civic responsibility and a new form of city-branding,

old shipbuilding industries and introduced accessible green space that

with politicians focused on the latter - sometimes to an overwhelming

was capable of hosting popular city activities and attractions throughout

degree. After the global financial meltdown in 2008, many of these ma-

the year. Leaving the city eager for a museum to compliment the area,

jor cultural projects (some still in construction), combined with govern-

the Guggenheim foundation was given complete control of the project

ment mismanagement and poor attendance, resulted in intense public

throughout the process - leading to an efficient, yet impressive-seeking

scrutiny and questioned the foundation of this surging iconography in

construction. Neverless, it was obvious to the media and every aspiring

architecture. For this study, highlighted projects focus on the character-

city that the “Icon” resulted in the sudden fortune of Bilbao, elevating

istics and campaigns for new performance architecture in a post-Bilbao

an emerging cultural industry in architecture that relies on the shock of

environment, with emphasis on geographically-condensed regions in

iconographic structures for supremacy in a global market.

Europe that traditionally have had regionalist building attitudes.

006 / 007

GEOCULTURAL TRIANGLE OF BILBAO

University

Th e N ón vi

er R er iv

Bellas Artes Museum

Alhóndiga Bilbao Teatro Arriaga

100 m 250 ft

“At some point, when it was becoming clear that the Alhondiga was not going to work as a site, there was this moment when I had this epiphany ... I went past the Bellas Artes Museum and then crossed this bridge to the university ... ran down to the opera house (Teatro Arriaga) and realized that this was, in fact, what I called the geocultural triangle of Bilbao.

The fact that the waterfront was in the middle of it at this point was only coincidental.”

// Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation 008 / 009

Paris Opera

Haussmann’s renovation of Paris 1853-1870 (red)

// Throughout history

, public perception of large performance halls in urban areas has always carried the

stigma of being an ‘elitist building’ - one that is built with the help of public tax funds for the exclusivity of the city’s wealthy.

European examples, especially from the 18th and 19th centuries, illustrate the problems of inclusion - grand palace-like structures rising on solid plinths, protected from the grim of the city’s urban fabric, but still calls out for attention with an overly ornate and monumental articulation from the building’s demeanor. No public space available - performancepatrons only - look but do not touch. However, as civic structures usually do, these buildings reflected the political and social environment at the moment of their construction. It was a time when Europe saw an emerging industrial age that defined new distinct social and economic classes (the elite public) over the established aristocratic nobility, but still averted the ideas of transparency and inclusion into urban improvement projects. The most notable example would come out of the Great Reconstruction of Paris from France’s Second Empire (1852-1870). Baron Haussmann’s modernization plan, under the direction of Napoleon III, famously sliced the ailing city of Paris with grand urban interventions, such as wide boulevards and public parks, that aimed at modernizing the cramped medieval city. The glittering centerpiece of the newly planned Paris was a new Opera House (Palais Garnier) - rising from almost 130,000 square feet of cleared land from a nefarious neighborhood that once was famous for prostitution and gambling activities. The building was planned as one of the ‘key points of the city’ - a significant symbol of imperial power that would connect Parisians both physically and perspectively between wide promenade boulevards of affluent living and socialisation - ultimately reflecting the nature of Second Empire Parisian society. Emphasis of the Opera site in Haussmann’s plan was evident, as it would be centrally located, surrounded by a network of streets and isolated as the terminal axial point of a newly created grand boulevard (Avenue de l’Opera) that directly links with the Louvre Palace - firmly monumentalizing itself as an important site for civic implications, like the Arc de Triomphe before it. Charles Garnier’s construction for the opera house - chosen after an open 5 month design competition - conveyed Haussmann’s plans with a monumental and eclectic expression of Neo-Baroque values from the Beaux-Arts architectural movement that could be described as excessively ornamental in language. Garnier’s design reflected a socio-economic shift in Parisian society that no longer relied on endowments from privileged political systems (aristocractic or monarchical), seeking to become a profitable and self-sufficient entity that attracted a new elite social class (the bourgeoisie), whom would gladly pay for seats and boxes within the opera, unlike the former aristocratic congregation - increasing the power of money over nobility. The result was a lavish urban spectacle that successfully put ‘society on show’ in Paris, gaining support from the city’s influential bourgeoisie and immediately became a prominent architectural prototype for numerous new performace spaces around the world.

Paris Opera House (opened in 1875)

Vienna State Opera (opened in 1869)

The Royal Opera House (opened in 1732)

Teatro Real (opened in 1850)

010 / 011

Teatro alla Scala (opened in 1778)

Paris Opera House // Reception Hall

012 / 013

Centre Pompidou (opened in 1977)

The Berlin Philharmonic (opened in 1963)

Royal National Theatre (opened in 1976)

Finlandia Hall (opened in 1971)

The House of Culture / Kulturhuset (opened in 1974)

Following the war-torn period of the early 20th Century, numerous European

within its surroundings, containing seamless vital links between the interior

cities were experiencing an unprecedented span of urban reconstruction and

life of institution and the public realm.

economic expansion dominated by variants of modernist architecture, led by

However, two decades of idealistic post-war cultural construction would be

The International Style - with emphasis on simplification of form and mate-

overshadowed and defined by one project - not from Europe, but from over

rial, rejection of ornament, and honest expression of structure - all by uti-

8,000 miles away in the burgeoning city of Sydney. The project - The Sydney

lizing the acceptance of industrial mass-production technologies. Hundreds

Opera House designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon - would be a massive

of new residential blocks, commercial towers, schools, and other neces-

undertaking on a highly visible and centralized site on Bennelong Point in

sary urban projects would begin to develop around post-war Europe - most

Sydney’s harbor. Utzon’s design had a pure expressionistic emphasis on

echoing what Le Corbusier termed “machines for living”. Toward 1960, at a

form, material and social function - most notably known for the structure of

time of unprecedented global economic prosperity and in the wake of a huge

the building’s large white shells. The building instantaneously attained the

financial investment in Western Europe’s need to rebuild and modernize,

sort of symbolic significance any project could hope for - on par with the

city officials aspired for cultural improvements that embodied the post-war

EIffel Tower or St. Louis Gateway Arch - that not only represented the city,

longing for change that paralleled the rising standard of urban living and

but Australia as a whole. More importantly, it was the largest contradiction

new political alignments for international integration (United Nations, NATO,

the building industry had ever seen - as the most successful project of its

ECSC). Planned cultural projects were sought as an antidote to the imper-

type, but with a disastrous construction period that was famously immersed

sonal ‘universality’ of the International Style, with design that would become

in economic and political complications from its very inception (taking over a

increasingly adventurous, following the lead back to early twentieth-century

decade to construct and over budget by 1400%) - leading to Utzon’s depar-

Modernism. New attitudes in modern language - such as a strong revival

ture from the project midway through construction and cast a pall on future

in Expressionism and an emergence in Brutalism - offered an aggressive

‘iconic’ cultural projects. Today, the opera house remains the most valuable

style of architecture that was concerned with an examination of local cul-

asset to the Australian economy (bringing in $775 million a year) and has

tures, urban context and a changing social order with international interests.

defined a distinctive brand that has transformed Sydney’s waterfront into the

The result was a slew of performance-arts-based buildings with a consistent

city’s most popular and desired urban district.

underlying attitude of connectivity (between the individual building and its

The performing-arts center has been redefined for the 21st century. The new

surroundings), composed monumentality (imposing with sense of human

generation of buildings must grow out of intricate partnerships among politi-

scale), and whole-human experience (enlightening social life by linking interi-

cians, business and cultural leaders to create emblematic structures that rep-

or function and public realm). English architect, Denys Lasdun, would define

licate Sydney’s success and generate more activity within the public realm,

these guiding principles as an ‘urban landscape’ - significant structures with

championing democratized design to a wider community - not straying far

a strong geometry and pure formal expressions as an intensified moment

from the typologies’ ancient Greek origins.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT COMPARISON

The Urban Spectacle (1700 - 1900)

The Urban Landscape (1950 - 2000)

Democratization of Form (2000 - Present) 014 / 015

The Sydney Opera House (opened 1973)

016 / 017

ROTCH TRAVELLING FELLOWSHIP [2011-2012]

CASE STUDIES 01

PG.026

Harpa Concert & Conference Centre

02

03

04

05

The National Theatre

Royal Opera House

Pompidou Centre

London, England

London, England

London, England

Paris, France

07

06

250 ft

Tate Modern Museum

Reykjavik, Iceland

PG.070

08

PG.090

09

PG.090

10

PG.124

Paris Opera House

The Concertgebouw

Royal Danish Playhouse

Royal Danish Opera

DR Concert Hall

Paris, France

Bruges, Belgium

Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen, Denmark

PG.140

11

16

PG.050

100 m

12

13

PG.164

14

15

Oslo Opera House

Finlandia Hall

Helsinki Music Centre

Kulturhuset

Sydney Opera House

Oslo, Norway

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki, Finland

Stockholm, Sweden

Sydney, Australia

PG.190

17

18

19

PG.210

20

PG.230

Grand Canal Theatre

Guggenheim Museum

Teatro Real

City of Culture of Galicia

Casa da Musica

Dublin, Ireland

Bilbao, Spain

Madrid, Spain

SdC, Spain

Porto, Portugal

SELECTED CASE STUDIES

22

21

PG.250

Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts

Metropol Parasol Sevilla, Spain

Valencia, Spain

27

26

Vienna State Opera

PG.312

Lingotto Conf Center

Florence Opera House

Turin, Italy

Florence, Italy

24

Berlin Philharmonic

Potsdamer Platz

Hamburg, Germany

Berlin, Germany

Berlin, Germany

PG.292

29

PG.330

Auditorium Parco Della Musica Rome, Italy

30

Teatro Alla Scala

Athens Concert Hall

Lucerne, Switzerland

33

25

Hamburg Philharmonic

Culture and Congress Center

Pecs, Hungry

32

PG.272

28

Kodaly Centre

Vienna, Austria

31

23

Milan, Italy

Athens, Greece

34

35

Gran Teatro la Fenice Venice, Italy

PG.350

Symphony Hall Boston, USA

Through a year of travel, a total of 35 examples of performing-arts-based architecture - spanning almost 240 years of civic metamorphosis - was observed in 28 autonomous cities using Europe’s crowded and competitive urban network as a point of reference and comparative analysis. The intention is to investigate the results of such completed projects that all encounter distinctive urban scales, cultural settings, and political footing - with focus on engagement in urban regeneration strategies (from localized communities to entire city districts) and the geopolitical desire to popularize in a globalized society. Of the selected observations, 16 were chosen as case studies that spotlight the planning and construction efforts in a ‘post-Bilbao’ period (from 1997- today) - representing almost 6 million square feet of new cultural space and over $5 billion in capital investment.

PRIME

CASE STUDY COMPARISON

City Population v. Building Cost Ratio

REYJAVIK LONDON BRUGES COPENHAGEN (PLAYHOUSE) COPENHAGEN (OPERA) COPENHAGEN (CONCERT HALL) OSLO HELSINKI DUBLIN SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA PORTO VALENCIA HAMBURG LUCERNE FLORENCE ROME BILBAO GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM (1996) SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE (1973) PARIS OPERA HOUSE (1875) SELECTED FOR COMPARISON STUDY (ADJUSTED POPULATION AND BUILDING COST FOR INFLATION)

$50

$100

$500

$1000

$5000

DOLLAR AMOUNT PER CITY RESIDENT

020 / 021

BY THE NUMBERS

DEVELOPMENT

DEVELOPMENT AREA (SQ FT)

BUILDING AREA (SQUARE FEET)

PARCEL AREA (SQUARE FEET)

TYPE

$4.6

WORLD TRADE CENTER

615,000

258,000

194,000

MIX

3

2,218,671

371,350

447,596

MUSEUM

1

16 CASE STUDIES

CITY

CITY AREA (SQ MILES)

CITY POP

CITY DENSITY (SQUARE MILES)

METRO POP

CITY GDP (BILLIONS)

HARPA CONCERT & CONF CNTR

REYJAVIK

106

119,108

1,131 / SQ MI

202,341

AUD CAP

TATE MODERN (TURBINE HALL)

LONDON

607

8,173,194

13,466 / SQ MI

15,010,295

$565

BANKSIDE URBAN FOREST

CONCERTGEBOUW

BRUGES

53.44

116,885

2,200 / SQ MI

1,169,990

$4.5

THE ZAND

282,092

185,622

95,434

CONCERT HALL

1

ROYAL DANISH PLAYHOUSE

COPENHAGEN

28.84

559,440

19,000 / SQ MI

1,950,522

$21.1

INNER HARBOR

861,113

226,044

93,695

THEATER

1

ROYAL DANISH OPERA

COPENHAGEN

28.84

559,440

19,000 / SQ MI

1,950,522

$21.1

INNER HARBOR

861,113

441,320

190,849

OPERA HOUSE

1

DR CONCERT HALL

COPENHAGEN

28.84

559,440

19,000 / SQ MI

1,950,522

$21.1

ORESTAD / DR BYEN CAMPUS

33,454,080

279,861

61,456

CONCERT HALL

2

OSLO OPERA HOUSE

OSLO

175

623,966

3,600 / SQ MI

1,442,318

$31

BJORVIKA

2,603,739

414,000

151,627

OPERA HOUSE

1

HELSINKI MUSIC CENTER

HELSINKI

276

604,380

7,323 / SQ MI

1,358,901

$22.2

TOOLONLAHTI BAY

700,000

390,000

45,842

CONCERT HALL

1

GRAND CANAL THEATER

DUBLIN

44.4

527,612

11,880 / SQ MI

1,804,156

$21

GRAND CANAL DOCK

4,112,064

148,198

58,485

THEATER

2

CITY OF CULTURE GALICIA

SDC

80

95,671

1,111 / SQ MI

2,778,913

$2.9

CITY OF CULTURE

7,535,880

220,000

75,000

OPERA HOUSE

1

$43.3

ROTUNDA DA BOAVISTA

1,829,203

236,808

136,573

CONCERT HALL

1

$25

CITY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

3,746,160

475,000

396,596

MIX

4

2

CASA DE MUSICA PALACE OF THE ARTS

PORTO VALENCIA

150 52

1,397,805 809,267

14,856 / SQ MI 16,000 / SQ MI

1,672,664 2,300,000

HAMBURG PHILHARMONIC

HAMBURG

22

1,802,041

6,200 / SQ MI

5,000,000

$117

HAFENCITY

23,653,080

667,000

122,780

CONCERT HALL

CULTURE AND CONGRESS CNTR

LUCERNE

11.22

78,093

6,965 / SQ MI

386,082

$3.4

PLAZA EUROPA

990,000

376,737

106,956

MIX

3

FLORENCE OPERA HOUSE

FLORENCE

39.5

378,000

9,600 / SQ MI

1,500,000

$11.6

PORTA AL PRATO

485,901

350,000

360,000

OPERA HOUSE

4

PARCO DELLA MUSICA AUDITORIUM

ROME

496

2,777,979

5,600 / SQ MI

4,194,068

$160

FLAMINIO DISTRICT

6,299,400

885,590

322,917

MIX

7

CASE STUDY TOTAL

--

2,199

19,182,321

--

44,671,294

$1,075

--

90,247,496

5,925,530

2,859,806

--

42

TOTAL AVG.

--

137

1,198,895

--

2,791,956

$67

--

5,640,469

370,346

178,738

--

2

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

SYDNEY

4689

3,000,000

5,330 / SQ MI

N/A

$200

BENNELONG POINT

--

479,160

239,580

OPERA HOUSE

5

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

BILBAO

15.7

353,187

23,000 / SQ MI

875,552

$10.9

BERVION RIVER PORT AREA

--

256,000

--

MUSEUM

PARIS OPERA HOUSE

PARIS

40.70

2,250,000

54,900

12,161,542

$723

NA

--

118,404

--

OPERA HOUSE

2

SYMPHONY HALL

BOSTON

89.63 SQ MI

625,087

12,752 / SQ MI

4,591,112

$313

FENWAY CULTURAL DISTRICT

--

N/A

39,600

CONCERT HALL

2

PAST STUDIES

N

G AREA FEET)

PARCEL AREA (SQUARE FEET)

TYPE

AUDIENCE CAPACITY

COMPLETION DATE

BLDG COST

COST (W/ INFLATION)

POPULATION / COST

POPULATION / SQFT

POPULATION / CAPACITY

COST / SQFT

COST / CAPACITY

SQFT / CAPACITY

00

194,000

MIX

3,200

5 / 2011

$241,000,000

$241,000,000.00

$2,023.37

2.17

2.69%

$934.11

$75,312.50

80.63

50

447,596

MUSEUM

1,500

5 / 2000

$202,325,000

$273,138,750.00

$33.42

0.05

0.02%

$735.53

$182,092.50

247.57

22

95,434

CONCERT HALL

1,609

2 / 2002

$37,500,000

$48,750,000.00

$417.08

1.59

1.38%

$262.63

$30,298.32

115.36

44

93,695

THEATER

1,000

2 / 2008

$138,000,000

$149,040,000.00

$266.41

0.40

0.18%

$659.34

$149,040.00

226.04

20

190,849

OPERA HOUSE

1,800

1 / 2005

$500,000,000

$595,000,000.00

$1,063.56

0.79

0.32%

$1,348.23

$330,555.56

245.18

61

61,456

CONCERT HALL

2,050

1 / 2009

$300,000,000

$327,000,000.00

$584.51

0.50

0.37%

$1,168.44

$159,512.20

136.52

00

151,627

OPERA HOUSE

1,964

4 / 2008

$700,000,000

$756,000,000.00

$1,211.60

0.66

0.31%

$1,826.09

$384,928.72

210.79

00

45,842

CONCERT HALL

1,704

4 / 2011

$249,000,000

$249,000,000.00

$411.99

0.65

0.28%

$638.46

$146,126.76

228.87

98

58,485

THEATER

2,111

3 / 2010

$101,800,000

$101,800,000.00

$192.94

0.28

0.40%

$686.92

$48,223.59

70.20

00

75,000

OPERA HOUSE

1,950

1 / 2011 (PH01)

$581,000,000

$581,000,000.00

$6,072.90

2.30

2.04%

$2,640.91

$297,948.72

112.82

08

136,573

CONCERT HALL

1,538

4 / 2005

$131,000,000

$155,890,000.00

$111.52

0.17

0.11%

$658.30

$101,358.91

153.97

00

396,596

MIX

4,000

10 / 2005

$454,000,000

$540,260,000.00

$667.59

0.59

0.49%

$1,137.39

$135,065.00

118.75

00

122,780

CONCERT HALL

2,150

06 / 2015

$659,000,000

$659,000,000.00

$365.70

0.37

0.12%

$988.01

$306,511.63

310.23

37

106,956

MIX

3,600

08 / 1998

$243,000,000

$347,490,000.00

$4,449.69

4.82

4.61%

$922.37

$96,525.00

104.65

00

360,000

OPERA HOUSE

4,900

12 / 2011

$200,000,000

$200,000,000.00

$529.10

0.93

1.30%

$571.43

$40,816.33

71.43

90

322,917

MIX

7,750

1994 - 12 / 2002

$102,000,000

$132,600,000.00

$47.73

0.32

0.28%

$149.73

$17,109.68

114.27

2,859,806

--

42,826

--

$4,839,625,000

$5,356,968,750

$18,449

16.58

14.89%

$15,328

$2,501,425

2,547.29

46

530

178,738

--

2,677

--

$302,476,563

$334,810,547

$1,153

1.04

0.93%

$958

$156,339

159.21

60

239,580

OPERA HOUSE

5,738

10 / 1973

$102,000,000

$535,500,000.00

$178.50

0.16

0.19%

$1,117.58

$93,325.20

83.51

00

--

MUSEUM

N/A

10 / 1997

$89,000,000

$129,050,000.00

$365.39

0.72

N/A

$504.10

N/A

N/A

04

--

OPERA HOUSE

2,156

1861 - 01 / 1875

$10,000,000

$256,000,000.00

$113.78

0.05

0.10%

$2,162.09

$118,738.40

54.92

39,600

CONCERT HALL

2,625

11/1900

$771,000

$15,500,000

$24.80

N/A

0.42%

N/A

$5,904.76

N/A

A

022 / 023

CONTEMPORARY (post-90s) CASE STUDIES

HARPA CONCERT HALL AND CONFERENCE CENTER

026 / 027

REYKJAVIK

200 m 500 ft

64.1515째 N, 21.9343째 W

ICELAND REYKJAVIK City Center 106 sq mi City Population 119,108 Population Density 1,123/sq mi

//

Metropolitan Population 202,341 Metropolitan Density 672/sq mi

METROPOLITAN GDP $4.6 Billion

As the world’s northernmost capital and largest city in Iceland, it is

and providing vibrance during the dark winter months. The only real

unsure whether Reykjavik is a scaled-down city or scaled-up village

sign of contemporary construction (glass, steel, etc.) can be found in

at first glance. The low density of the city and the active waterfront/

the lowest topographic point of the city, the waterfront, which allows

harbor, paired with the vast surrounding Icelandic landscape, deceiv-

taller structures to create long shadows under the low arctic sun and not

ingly miniaturizes the city. Housing 2/3 of Iceland’s total population of

seriously affect the surrounding context. The manipulation and control

around 300,000, it is the heart of the country’s economic, cultural and

of natural daylight is a major driving force in architectural and urban de-

governmental activities. Located in southwestern Iceland, on the south-

sign, with the extreme artic sun position throughout the year. (minimal

ern shore of Faxaflói Bay, you are always aware of the dramatic volca-

sunlight in the winter, minimal darkness in the summer).

nic landscape that dominates the Icelandic Island with the flat-topped mountain of Esja looming across the bay.

Historically, Reykjavik was settled by Norwegian Vikings around AD 870, locating the site from steam coming from the hot springs in the

The architectural vernacular of Reykjavik can primarily be considered

region, inspiring Reykjavík’s name, which loosely translates to Smoke

low-rise, containing numerous urban blocks of two- or three-storey

Cove (the city is often referred to as the Bay of Smokes or Bay of

buildings with pitched roofs predominating across the city. Due to the

Smoke). Fishing and agriculture were, and continue to be, major in-

abundance of land that surrounds the area, reasonable population

dustries around the city, with little resources to work with in the area.

size, and excellent transportation infrastructure, building density has

The original building type for the region, the Icelandic turf house, was

never been seen as a huge issue. Furthermore, frequent seismic activ-

the product of a difficult climate, offering superior insulation compared

ity, which is so prevalent in Iceland, has also dictated building density

to buildings solely made of wood or stone, and the relative difficulty

and construction methods throughout the city. Traditionally, residences

in obtaining other construction materials in sufficient quantities. At the

and smaller municipal buildings are of wooden-framed construction,

time of settlement, Reykjavik was fully forested, but limited due to the

detached and usually adjacent to a small private garden or courtyard,

volcanic landscape. This meant that it was difficult to build large and

allowing light to get into the properties. Most structures in the area are

complex structures and ships, culminating with a lack of vessels that

most commonly clad in wooden planks or painted corrugated iron and

could transport large cargoes. Due to the lack of transport and Iceland’s

steel sheathing. The most popular vernacular material seems to be

remoteness, importing foreign timber was not very common and mostly

the exterior corrugated metal sheathing, due to it’s resistance to high

reserved for ship and church building. However, Iceland did have a

coastal winds, light structural weight and great structural strength. The

large amount of turf that was suitable for construction, making the Ice-

most interesting aspect of this construction is it’s individualistic nature,

landic Turf House an ideal building type. As time went on, trade became

with residents often painting this common material with bright vibrant

more achievable and relevant, making additional materials available to

colors and designs, emulating the richness of the Icelandic landscape

the secluded island city.

028 / 029

CONTEXT

030 / 031

Development Development Area Building Area

Reykjavik World Trade Center

Estimated

$241,000,000

615,000 sqft

Bldg Cost

258,000 sqft (80,000 sqft

Architects

Henning Larsen Architects Batteríið Architects

footprint) Audience Capacity

Conference Hall / 450 Hall / 200 Small Theater) Completion Date

Ólafur Elíasson (Designer)

3,200 (1,800 Main Hall / 750

05.2011

Users

Iceland Symphony Orchestra The Icelandic Opera Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra

032 / 033

MASTER PLAN Old Harbor Waterfront Masterplan (2008-2009) Before the effects of the economic meltdown were realized, the primary land owner, Associated Icelandic Ports, organized a masterplan competition to provide a strategic vision for the future development of approximately 190 acres within the harbour area and city centre, currently home to a range of industrial, commercial, tourist and cultural activities (including the already planned Harpa concert hall). The winning masterplan, won by Graeme Massie Architects, proposed a ‘spine’ that forms an urban extension to the city and harbors, while creating a new city blocks that are structured into a series of highly permeable longitudinal building plots, each with street and harbour frontages linked by pedestrian lanes and intimately scaled courtyard spaces. The spine would extend beyond the natural coastline to form a new residential peninsula, with a generous waterfront promenade, orientated to the southwest. Access to the residential district is clearly separated from neighbouring commercial and light industrial activities that will be consolidated on the outer harbour peninsula, benefitting both from a remarkable setting and direct road connections to the city centre via a new harbour tunnel.

East Harbour Masterplan (2010-2011) After the dust settled from the economic turmoil, masterplanning efforts were sigifically pulled back to just the Eastern part of the Old Harbor. As the primary Architect of the Harpa, Henning Larsen Architects were asked to develop a plan to revitalise the area around the new theater complex and harbor. The resulting design comprises an 280,000 ft² masterplan with the overall objective to improve the connection between the city center and the harbor.

The project includes a number of significant buildings for cultural and mixed use, including the Harpa concert hall, a hotel and wellness centre, an academy of fine arts, a bank domicile, a cinema, a new shopping street and urban plaza, and a number of residential and commercial buildings.

Graeme Massie Architects

Henning Larsen Architects

034 / 035

Háskólabíó Theater

Icelandic Opera House

Harpa Concert Hall

LOCATION //

The selected site for the concert hall and conference

greater-Reykjavik. This immediate visual connection offers

center, located in the Old Harbor area of Reykjavik, makes

direction and attraction to a low-lying city that has few focal

an ideal location for the new project as Iceland has always

points, with the exception of Hallgrímskirkja (largest church

been a maritime nation with an explicit affiliation for the

in the capital city). Programmatically, Harpa focuses differ-

sea. The island nation, founded by Nordic sailors around

ent sections of the city as well, by inviting numerous artistic

the 9th century, was first settled in Reykjavik and essen-

companies that have worked capriciously throughout the

tially grew out of the sea, with the harbor as the lifeblood of

city to perform under one roof, including the Icelandic Op-

the community for food supply and connections to mainland

era and Icelandic Symphony Orchestra (both moving from

Europe. With that in mind, the new theater complex liter-

old, modest buildings that are shared as cinema houses).

ally “grew out of the sea” by siting the future project on an

Not to mention, coupling with the conference center section

area that was previously underwater in the old harbor, but

gives more program appeal as it invites corporate and civic

with earthfill, Harpa now sits on a low, central point in the

events that would not necessarily be seen in contemporary

city, with line-of-sight from numerous locations throughout

performance halls.

036 / 037

HARPA

CENTRAL BANK OF ICELAND

Looking down LĂŚkjargatain in downtown Reykjavik

Iceland Financial Crisis Protest (Image aquired: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Icelandic_financial_crisis_protests)

BEGINNING & CONTROVERSY // The plan to build a permanent concert house

music part, the public cultural institution part),

purpose. Building materials were changed

dates back a few decades. In the eighties, the

where it all started, were toned down. During

and a lot of new design decisions were made

designated site was not even close to the wa-

that time there was strong pressure to create

to cut budgets and save money, getting a

ter; located East of the city centre in Laugar-

something with a very sound business plan.

more honest and straightforward concert hall.

dalur, an area of sports venues, city parks and

Now, almost complete, the concert hall has at-

swimming pools. Years later it was decided to

But, after the crash of 2008, all the banking

tracted a significant amount of local and inter-

build the project in a more public and acces-

companies went bankrupt and it turned out

national interest, but there is still some in Ice-

sible location by the old harbor in downtown

that the primary private investor hadn’t actu-

land that believe the contemporary steel and

Reykjavik. Originally, the concert house was

ally put any real capital into the project (all

glass structure was built as a monument to

going to be built by the city of Reykjavik and

loans from a now defunct bank), halting con-

the bankers, who were blamed for bankrupt-

an organisation of music patrons, but eventu-

struction and leaving Harpa only half-built. For

ing the country. Interestingly enough, there

ally, during Iceland’s banking boom, a private

a few months, nobody knew what to do with

was another idea that came second in the

investor associated with banking company

the project as it just sat unfinished down by

competition for the building. This was by ar-

Landsbanki (one of Iceland’s largest banks)

the waterfront, a reminder of the folly of the

chitect Jean Nouvel and called for the house

took over and expedited the project, claiming

boom years until the government, after hotly

to be built like a grass hill—in harmony with

it as a gift to the Icelandic nation. The origi-

argued debates about the merits of erecting

Arnarhóll, a grassy hill which stands in the

nal plans for the concert hall and surrounding

an unfinished $270 million concert hall during

centre of town, right by the site of the concert

area were immediately changed as it was go-

a recession, decided that it would be more

house. Perhaps this idea was though to be too

ing to be a stomping ground of consumerism

morally costly to let it disintegrate than to pony

reminiscent of the time when most Icelanders

with a more shopping and mixed-use devel-

up the millions needed to finish it. The crisis

lived in houses made of mud and grass, and

opment, including a new headquarters for the

shifted Harpa’s focus back towards its original

so it didn’t have as much appeal.

bank. For the concert hall itself, during the competition process, there was a strong focus on the music hall with a conference center on the side, but it very quickly became a conference center with some music on the side. The private entity had seemed less interested in the cultural aspects of Harpa, so there was a strong focus in that period on optimizing and detailing the commercial aspects of the building, whereas the cultural aspects (the

038 / 039

040 / 041

Building Section // Kaldalón Hall

DESIGN INTENT // The 92,000 sq-foot complex comprises of

slightly ignored in this case, as study is gen-

ways, projecting the movement of the city

an exhibit area and four main concert halls

erally focused on connection and interaction

onto itself with an alternate existence. The ef-

inspired by the elements fire, air, water, and

to the urban context. With that said, the most

fect dematerializes the realationship between

earth; all of which are related to Icelandic

notable element of the project is the glass wall

the project and urban fabric, not acting as a

nature, Eldborg (Fire Castle), Norðurljós

structure that seperates the public plaza and

static object, but having the ability to be recep-

(Northern Lights), Silfurberg (Iceland spar, a

the interior atrium.

tive to change within it’s surroundings. Realistically, the facade creates a membrane sepa-

rare translucent calcite crystal), and Kaldalón (Cold Lagoon). Design work was carried

According to most observers, they will say the

rating the city from the interior of the theater in

through by Danish Architect, Henning Larson

important aspect of the facade is its ability to

dramatic fashion, but it lies directly adjacent to

Architects, in collaboration with Danish Artist

transform Iceland’s unique northern light into

a busy road, so the triple-pane design buffers

(who grew up in Iceland), Olafur Eliasson, to

a colorful, kaleidoscope effect (which is does).

air and noise, to maximize the hall’s acous-

create Iceland’s first contemporary theater

But, what I find more appealing is the building

tics, as well as withstand Iceland’s extreme

venue. For the purposes of this research, in-

skin’s ability to become interactive; between

climate changes. The quasi-brick constructed

terior design observations and activities are

the surrounding harbor, highway, and walk-

facade is a 12-sided module made of steel

and glass, conceived by Olafur Eliasson and

a pivotal role in the development of Reykjavik,

area of Laugavegur. As Harpa nears comple-

his collaborator Einar Thorsteinn, can also

connections with the sea have been weak-

tion (late August 2011), the East and West of

be seen as connecting to the landscape by

ened over time as the city and its economy

the site contains undeveloped land, waiting

evoking Icelandic natural design,

mimicing

have evolved. Heavy traffic on Geirsgata and

for private acquistions. The West parcel that

to the landscape by evoking Icelandic natural

Mýrargata acts as a barrier, making the route

borders the theater complex and downtown

design, mimicing the famous crystalized ba-

to the harbour an unattractive prospect for

Reykjavik is especially troubling, as it is pro-

salt columns from Iceland’s coastlines (also

pedestrians. In addition, piecemeal develop-

grammed as a new hotel site (with no buyers),

inspired the design for Hallgrimskirkja).

ment along the harbor has contributed to an

but sits as a giant excavated ditch, creating

environment that lacks a positive or coherent

another obsticle on the journey to the water-

The logic behind moving the Harpa project to

identity. The majority of pedestrain activity is

front. As it stands now, there is no connection

the waterfront was to provide a bridge to the

contained within the core of the downtown,

between the newly developed waterfront and

old harbour of Reykjavik, significantly contrib-

under cover from harsh winds and potential

historic downtown, with just parking lots and

uting to the identity of the city; however this is

for sun in the many urban plazas and parks,

undeveloped land connecting them.

not the case. Although the harbour has played

but most activity occurs along the shopping 042 / 043

Hybrid Floor Plan: Ground & 2nd Level

Norรฐurljรณs Hall (Recital Hall) // 520 seats Kaldalรณn Hall (Auditorium) // 195 seats

Eldborg Hall (Main Hall) // 1800 seats

Norรฐurljรณs Hall (Recital Hall)

044 / 045

Eldborg Hall (Main Hall)

MATERIALITY

046 / 047

“Harpa now has to build its own history. If the façade can serve as its identity, that is good, but the signature lies in the success of running the building. Ideally this will be a famous concert hall, renowned for its concerts and acoustics, that happens to have a fantastic work of art surrounding it.â€? // Olafur Eliasson

048 / 049

TATE MODERN MUSEUM

050 / 051

ENGLAND LONDON

//

City Center 607 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 15,010,295

City Population 8,173,194

Metropolitan Density 2,010/sq mi

Population Density 13,466/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $565 Billion (city)

Alongside New York and Tokyo, the city of London is a multifaceted

blocks were erected throughout the city, although these later proved un-

global entity, producing one of the world’s most influential financial and

popular. In a bid to reduce the number of people living in overcrowded

cultural centers, while commanding governmental decisions as the capi-

housing, a policy was introduced of encouraging people to move into

tal city and largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom. With an of-

newly built towns surrounding London.

ficial population of around 8 million (14 million in metropolitan area) and hosting the most international visitors of any city in the world, Greater

The M25 circular motorway encompasses the area broadly regarded as

London is considered the largest city in Western Europe and the Eu-

Greater London. Cutting the circle in two is the city’s main geographi-

ropean Union, making it crowded, vibrant and truly a multicultural city.

cal feature - the River Thames. Within the center of the circle contains a two-centre city, Westminster and The City (historic London). East of

While visiting the city, someone had described to me that London was

Westminster, The City is the capital’s financial district, covering roughly

a giant anthill, which I thought was fairly sarcastic, but would later find

the square mile of the original settlement bordered by the ruined ro-

to be somewhat true. At first glance, the city is not ‘tall’ by any means

man city walls, with St. Paul’s Cathedral at the center. The areas east

compared to other large metropolitan cities, but given the population

of the City are collectively known as the East End (home of the new

and infrastructure in the area, it is a very dense and diverse city in terms

Olympics). The West End, on the city’s other flank, is effectively the

of living and working in the city. With that, you add the foundation of the

centre of London currently, and where you’ll find iconic landmarks such

urban fabric based on a system setup centuries ago with no grid in sight,

as Parliament and Trafalgar Square. Historically, The land to the west of

the streets become winding and cramped throughout the region, almost

the City (part of the parish of Westminster) was prime farming land and

giving a claustrophobic feeling in some areas. Finally, the amount of

made good area for building elaborate structures. The land to the east

urban strata throughout the more than a millennia of the city’s existence,

was flat, marshy and cheap, good for cheap housing and industry, and

layering and combining the past with the present (including a whole city

later for docks. Also the wind blows from west to east, and the Thames

of tunnels underneath the surface), creates an interesting hybridization

(into which the sewage went) flows from west to east, so the West End

of urban development. Add to that, the incredible amount of commuter

was up-wind and up-market, the East End was where people worked

and visitor population (6 million) with the immediate city population all

for a living.

swarming and navigating throughout the urban framework in shoes, cars, buses or trains. London can be described as an urban ant farm.

On a much larger meaning, London has absorbed numerous surrounding towns and villages over the centuries, including large portions of the

During World War II, London, as many other British cities, suffered se-

surrounding “home counties”. The term Greater London embraces Cen-

vere damage, being bombed extensively by the Luftwaffe as a part of

tral London together with all the outlying suburbs that lie in one continu-

The Blitz. Using large landmarks, like St. Paul’s Cathedral as location

ous urban sprawl within the lower Thames valley. Today, numerious con-

devices, German pilots navigated numerous raids, unloading tons of

struction projects litter Greater London, especially in the city centre and

high explosive all over the city. The city suffered severe damage with

East End. Mostly focused on infastructure modernization and expan-

tens of thousands of buildings destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of

sion, the city is in preperation for the world stage when it hosts the 2012

people made homeless by war’s end. At the end of the war in 1945 plan-

Summer Olympics. Notable areas of construction include the Bankside

ners and politicians eagerly seized the opportunity to reconstruct and

area, with new high-end residential buildings and the new Shard London

modernize London as a city which provided decent standards of living

Bridge (to be the tallest structure in the EU), and Stratford City (home of

for all, even to demolish buildings that were not deemed unsafe. During

the new Olympic Park).

the 1950s and 1960s the skyline of London altered dramatically as tower

LONDON

100 m 250 ft

51.5076째 N, 00.0994째 W

Development Development Area Building Area

Bankside Urban Forest 2,218,671 sqft 371,350 sqft (35,520 sqft Turbine Hall)

Audience Capacity Completion Date

Turbine Hall: 1,000 + 05.2000

Estimated

$202,325,000

Architects

Herzog & De Meuron

Bldg Cost

Users

The Tate Various Artists

EVENT SPACE

Suzy Willson and Clod Ensemble ‘Silver Swan’

Olafur Eliasson ‘The Weather Project’

Tania Bruguera ‘Whisper #5’

Ai Weiwei ‘Sunflower Seeds’

Anish Kapoor ‘Marsyas’

054 / 055

Michael Clark Dance Company

DESIGN INTENT // Bankside. For centuries, this area south of the Thames River

Following review of the proposal, the Tate trustees agreed the current

had been synonymous with industry, entertainment (Rose and Globe

site would not provide sufficient new exhibition space for present and

theaters) and a brimming population living in poor conditions. Yet, once

anticipated needs of the gallery, concluding that a second site in London

the theaters left and harbor activity moved east of the city, this once bus-

would have to be found. Luckily, Bankside had some available property.

tling district laid dormant. Years after the Great War, new infrastructure

As Tate Trustee, Michael Craig-Martin explains, “The new site (the old

was needed and a baffling decision was made to build an oil-fired power

power station) answered all the criteria governing the search: an unpar-

station directly opposite St Paul’s Cathedral, typical of the casual urban-

alleled large-scale central London location, excellent transport facilities,

ism you would not find in many European countries except Britain. The

the possibility of a riverboat connection with the gallery at Millbank, and

outcome was a simply detailed functional brick shed, coined the ‘cathe-

immediate availability for development”. An open international competi-

dral of pure energy’ by architect Giles Gilbert Scott to draw comparison

tion proceeded, particularly questioning how to deal with the existing

to London’s famous cathedral. Towering over the Thames, staring down

building and it’s position in the urban context. Nearly 150 architects en-

the city of London, the power station soon became one of the city’s most

tered the competition, but the eventual architect (H&dM) would have the

emblematic structures, active for more than thirty years until rising oil

only proposal that completely accepted the existing building - it’s form,

prices led it to shutdown in 1981, leaving the perceptible building vacant

it’s materials and it’s industrial characteristics. By re-using the existing

and slowly decaying. Bankside’s urban fabric needed a new catalyst.

power station, the architects argued that the Tate was free from the need to create the memorable, signature form that is deemed essential in

Coinciding with the power station shutdown, the Tate Gallery was work-

contemporary cultural design. They simply borrow it from the old build-

ing with architect James Stirling on a new master plan focusing on ex-

ing, with adaptions, and concentrate on the qualities and connections

pansion of the overburdened facilities around their Millbank location.

of public spaces.

056 / 057

BRANDING

058 / 059

“It is a cultural landmark and global icon and I’m delighted to support its much-needed expansion. Not only will it add to the excitement around the 2012 Games, it will extend the potential benefits of this great temple of art even further south into the Bankside area.” // Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

Completed in 2000, the $208 million dollar project was the first new

admission) and one of London’s top destinations, basically overnight.

national museum built within Britain in the last hundred years and the

However, a year later, attendance numbers would begin to slump after

first in London devoted solely to modern art. Tate Modern would be the

the initial first-year rush by 32%, despite popularity of the big-name tem-

cornerstone to an urban regeneration strategy, created by the South-

porary exhibits. A Tate spokeswoman would say the figures from 2002

wark Council, aimed at improving the accessibility of the area and its

signaled a “natural leveling-off”, but it’s coincidental those numbers

immediate environment as well as pulling investment into the area. De-

coincided with the bridge closure, showing the significance of this cru-

velopments, such as the Bankside Pier (with ferry service) and Bankside

cial connection. After the bridge was reopened, visitor numbers would

Riverwalk manifested the area into an accessibility nexus, the center of

rebound to the current high levels the museum enjoys today. The key

a linear sweep along the Thames connecting destinations East (Tower

component in the project’s success has been the potential of the re-

Bridge, Tower of London) and West (South Bank, Westminster) of the

dundant Turbine Hall itself, transformed into a covered street, like a city

site. Perhaps the most important connection would come months later,

square, within the museum. I hesitate to use the phrase ‘public space’ to

as the highly publicized Millennium Bridge (the first new central London

describe such a programmatic force, as it still is governed by Tate’s rules

river crossing in over a hundred years) opened, physically bringing to-

and regulations. However, it is still an uniquely important urban space,

gether ideas of old and new, north and south, art and commerce, and

drawing visitors in with the idea of an accessible place of refuge that can

the two visual landmarks of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the city and Bank-

change character according to the time of day, the quality of light and

side’s Tate Modern. Two days later, the steel suspension structure would

the number of visitors. It’s appeal is it’s welcoming nature and easy ac-

shut down due to instability caused by heavy pedestrian traffic and not

cess, offering the community a place for congregation and performance,

reopen for another year and a half.

including the popular Unilever Series, an annual commission to make interactive art specifically for the Turbine Hall. However, although hugely

Regardless of the bad news, Tate Modern surpassed expectations

popular within the community, some critics would have reservations with

with more than five million visitors in the first year, making it one of the

the Turbine Hall embodying a place of art and performance:

most visited modern art galleries in the world (note: museum offers free

060 / 061

062 / 063

MASTER PLAN With the redeployment of the power station as

good relations with small businesses, chang-

ments inherent in the Tate’s projection, ap-

a modern museum and an eagerly-awaited

ing the balance between vehicles and pedes-

pealing not to the eternity of the Ages, but to

significant addition, along with developing vi-

trians, bringing scale and humanity to harsh

the continually shifting present. The architects

tal connections along and across the Thames,

areas, and offering continuing discoveries in

and planners took the old power station site,

Bankside’s office and residential develop-

it’s street patterns. Inspired by the strengths

recalling the fate of the grimy industrial area

ments have begun to transform, as evidence

of Bankside’s labyrinthine set of streets and

and, instead of throwing it away, enhanced

in the improvements to both the public and

built structures, the idea of ‘Forest Space’

crucial urban connectivity, embracing it as a

private developments immediately South of

has always had an association with a sense

past projection onto a modern city, organiz-

Tate Modern that have successfully consid-

of freedom and permeability, a place that can

ing a region with meandering streets, clusters

ered architect Richard Roger’s urban study

be entered and exited at any point, offering

of diverse spaces, and overlapping develop-

schemes for the area. However, a broader

a diverse set of paths and activities. Consid-

ment patterns. Now, with a proposed addi-

plan was needed to determine a smart-growth

ered as ‘clearing’ in the forest, Tate Modern

tion underway and focus on Urban Forest’s

strategy for the entire Bankside Triangle area.

was the ideal location to plant the first seeds

micro-development strategies, a new direct

Commissioned by ‘Better Bankside’ in collab-

of the forest, already projecting influence on

North/South route will develop, from crossing

oration with other broad groups in the area,

the planning of the new southern addition and

the Millennium Bridge, through the Turbine

architects Witherford Watson Mann devel-

surrounding area.

Hall, into the heart of Southwark, creating a

oped Bankside Urban Forest, a coordinated urban design framework consisting of an evolutionary and fragmentary process that resists over-inscription of public space and focuses on investment in pocket parks, cultivating

Transformation of urban districts from industry to culture is a commonality in today’s city redevelopment strategies. However, Tate’s successful development and appeal has come from accepting past contextual assign-

spine of human experiences and connectivity – helping to connect the whole area to the South Bank and the City beyond, providing the catalyst for the further regeneration of the whole area.

Witherford Watson Mann’s “Bankside Urban Forest”

Bankside: Site Plan

064 / 065

Photographs of Herzog & DeMeuron’s design process for the Tate Modern Addition in London’s Bankside

THE SEQUEL Like all great modern successes, there

Turbine Hall, as EDF Energy (operators

place. The proposal, putting all of the

is always a bigger, bolder sequel on the

of the electric substation) completed

new development south of the original

horizon. With a rocky world economy

work to modernize the station’s equip-

building, begins to structure a duality,

and ongoing government cutbacks in

ment, allowing them to use a smaller

defining the boundary of Tate’s public

arts financing, the Tate Modern is ready

amount of space in the building and

center. To the north, the articulation of

to grow. What was once part of the mu-

freeing up vital space for Tate Modern

the landscape is much more expansive

seum’s original plan in 2000, the exten-

to expand. Breaking ground this past

and public, with vast views of the city

sion realizes the further potential of the

Spring, the 11-story addition will cre-

and river edge, occupied by movement

site and of the existing building itself.

ate new gallery and social spaces to

of thousands of people from the bridge,

New plans (coined the Tate Modern

relieve the overcrowded existing build-

ferry and riverwalk. To the south, a new

Project) are being developed to take

ing and respond to the changing nature

development aimed at developing a

over the subterranean oil tanks of the

of art, with facilities for new media and

dramatic change in scale and charac-

former power station from which the

raw spaces where special installations

ter, creating an ‘external room’ with a

new building will rise to the south of the

by artists and performances will take

natural canopy and smaller, humanistic

Building Section with new addition

Building Elevation with new addition

066 / 067

“You feel very small in the face of the magnitude of this cathedral. It sends messages for miles: This is important, this is a sacred place, everything here is sacred. Things that are sacred aren’t questioned, and that’s the problem.” // Jake Chapman, artist

068 / 069

CONCERTGEBOUW BRUGGE (CONCERT HALL)

070 / 071

BRUGES 200 m 500 ft

51.2108째 N, 03.2248째 E

BELGIUM BRUGES City Center 53.44 sq mi

Metropolitan Population xxxx

City Population 116,885

Metropolitan Density xxx/sq mi

Population Density 2,200/sq mi

METROPOLITAN GDP $4.5 Billion

// Notably referred to as ‘The Venice of the North’, Bruges has enjoyed a long and successful economic history as a strategic trading center dating back to the 12th century when a natural channel (the Zwin inlet) emerged off the Flemish coast, allowing the medieval city direct access to the North Sea coast. For the following three centuries Bruges’ urban fabric morphed into a cultural condenser, eagerly welcoming foreign merchants as the epicenter for established northern and southern trade routes. The populat ion of Bruges would grow exponentially around this period (doubling the size of London), creating a considerable exchange of influential ideas leading to a surge in artistic and scientific achievement, known for techniques in weaving/spinning, oil-painting, architecture and the printing press (first book printed in English was published by William Caxton in Bruges). However, by the early 1500s, the Zwin channel would begin to silt and the immediate decline in the city’s economic activity would soon follow. Regardless of rapid maritime modernization to the area and a reestablishment of an oceanic connection, by 1900 Bruges had lost three-quarters of its population, with the majority of foreign trading houses moving to neighboring Antwerp. What was left behind was a preserved, but aging medieval city center. Following the city’s incorporation into Belgium from the United Provinces of the Netherlands, a collection of English aristocrats influenced by the city’s historical and cultural significance, founded the Society for History and Antiquities of Bruges and West Flanders that focused on renewed interest in the artistic heritage of Bruges, including the restoration of historic buildings (some resulting in the construction of pure copies of lost historic buildings) following the destruction of both world wars.

Around 1880, Belgian writer/poet Georges Rodenbach published “Bruges the Dead”, a novel that would describe the town’s abandonment and alerted a growing tourist enterprise to its preserved architectural charm. That, along with the proximity to the Waterloo battlefield, would influence vast numbers of curious, wealthy visitors, bringing much-needed business into Bruges and sealed its fate as a town frozen in time. Through the last century, with some economic vitality, Bruges has had to grapple with the controversal notion of falseness in the urban fabric and the discrepancy between the city center’s artifical architecture versus the more vibrant reality of the surounding industrious suburbs. Once again the city has been commercially exploited; not as a maritime center that had secured economic and contextural opportunities, but as a well-consolidated tourist phenomenon feeding off historical ambience. However, local discussions began to give voice to a concern that evassive tourism has menaced the city’s true heritage, leading to the introduction of ideas on contemporary architecure and the arrival of the European Capital of Culture.

CONTEXT

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Belfry of Bruges on Markt (Market Square)

MASTER PLAN

Markt Burg

‘t Zand

Before becoming the cultural capital of Europe in 2002, the city pressed through a 30-year-long process of economic and urban change. The 1972 Structure Plan had strived to alleviate an obvious struggle between the old town and surrounding boroughs while retaining historical value, introducing urban renewal philosophies to a stagnent city. The plan initiated a number of policies aimed at increasing the quality of low-cost housing standards, also laying out guidlines for redeveloping the city center and rethinking its traffic flow. At the same time, the city’s infastructure was upgraded, most notably sanitising the famous canals.

Train Station

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Development

European Capital of Culture (2002)

Development Area Building Area Audience Capacity

282,092 sqft 185,622 sqft (70,000 sqft parcel) 1289, 320

Completion Date

02.2002 (late 1999-2002)

Estimated Bldg $

$37,500,000

Architects Users

Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem VZM Concertgebouw Brugge

Church of Our Lady

The composition of the project positions the new Concert Hall against the background of the three famous mediaeval towers of the city center: the Cathedral, the Belfry and the Church of Our Lady.

078 / 079

CONTEMPORARY RESURGENCE //

For 2002, the European Union selected Bruges, along with Sala-

million new visitors.

manca, as co-selections for the European Capital of Culture (an over-

Apart from building the Concertgebouw and renovating its urban cen-

30 year socio-economic program that promotes cultural aspirations and

ter, Bruges has also adopted other architectural projects for the event.

development within the host city). The aim of the year-long celebration

Although they are rather small in scope, they are nonetheless clearly in

was to submerge Bruge into the heart of contemporary cultural Europe

tune with the firm intention of the European Capital of Culture to link the

and break free of its languid canals and medievel charm. The capital of

heritage of the past to that of the present. At the site of Burg square lies

Western Flanders would spend over $118 million on new construction /

the contemporary villa by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito. The covered

restoration projects throughout the city, along with an operational budget

passage suggests both the famous Bruges lace and also the fourth side

of $36 million, providing musical, sculptural, scenic, literary and theat-

of the square where it occupies a place of honour. The footbridge by

rics in numerous different sites. The prominent venue would be a new

Dutch designers West 8 has the same intention. The construction leaves

150,000 sqft performing arts center (Concertgebouw) located just inside

a pure, natural expression, with the organic nature of the bridge allows

the historic city center on a fomer large market space (the Zand), hoping

the structure to gently site itself within Koning Albert Park for pedestrians

to attract a larger cultural audience and attract international attention.

and cyclists connecting Kanaaleiland banks and the historic city center,

The inauguration of the new venue in Febuarary 2002 would symboli-

following the traditional route of the night watchman’s round. Thus mod-

cally start Bruge’s year of culture that would eventually attract over 1.5

ern architecture serves ancient traditions.

Toyo Ito Pavilion

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Kanaaleiland Foorbridge by West 8

The selected site for the Concert Hall, one with a turbulent piece of urban history, can be seen to a certain extent undefined. The Zand has existed since the sixteenth century as a large market square just inside the historic city perimeter. Around 1840 it became home to two iterations of the city’s main railway station, which in 1940 was relocated south, just outside the edge of the historical city center. Furthermore the growth of automobile transport would change the city’s infrastructure needs, leading to the old rail line being replaced by a roadway, effectively separating the western end of the city center. From 1978 - 82, following the Structural Plan, the road dividing The Zand was moved underground to a tunnel offering direct access to underground parking, on top of which part of the Concert Hall now stands. However, the construction of the tunnel did not alleviate the connection between the eastern and western sides of the square, partly because the interstitial zone between The Zand and the current train station were designed as a public park (Albert I Park), itself divided by car traffic. The northern and southern edges were left largely open due to the tunnel’s superstructures, resulting in the design of the square failing to define a spatial entity. Regardless, The Zand remains a major public thoroughfare, accommodating various civic functions, such as hosting weekly food markets, annual fairs and music concerts.

North facade of Concertgebouw facing The Zand

The large fountain ‘The Bathing Ladies’ (1985) by Stefaan De Puydt and Livia Canestraro in the middle of the square

' T Zand Square

' T Zand Bus Station

Chamber Music Hall // 320 seats

Concert Hall // 1289 seats

R30 Site Plan

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DESIGN INTENT

South facade of Concertgebouw facing Koning Albert I Park

The immediate proximity of the historic city

bound up with appreciations of its architecture

park to continue up, into and through the Con-

center, the presence of an underground car

(both from the present and the past). After an

certgebouw. Numerous performance spaces

park, the direct link to the city’s ring-road and

initial selection round the jury would choose

are included in the building program in order

ease of access from the whole region were the

the design of Robbrecht Daem, two Ghent-

to accommodate all types of events, which

arguments for the correct choice of The Zand.

based architects.

includes the Concert Hall (1289 seats), the

In 1998 a closed architectural competition for

The architects solution would focus on three

Chamber Music Hall (320 seats) and vari-

the new concert hall would commence, with

keys areas: contextual siting, aesthetic iden-

ous reception rooms. The small music hall is

participation from seven architects around the

tity and functional force; respecting the link-

brought forward toward The Zand and lifted

world. The competition and its outcome gen-

ages between Bruges and Albert Park. As

above the ground plane in order to balance

erated a lively public response that indicated

you approach, the building and site seem

the composition of the building’s distinctive

how closely views on the city’s identity were

to overlap and merge, allowing the adjacent

shape and introduce a ‘lantern’ tower that

PLANNED DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED NEW DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

es behind the skin and enters into an intimate

public square, evoking the image of an Italian

The building’s mass is imposing with a mono-

relationship with the surrounding landscape.

campanile, while allowing visitors the ability to

lithic and composed sculptural appearance,

The Concert Hall has established itself as a

see panoramic views of the historic city. It is

making no attempt at transparency or light-

building that questions the city’s identity in a

evident that a clear decision had been made

ness. The volume is materialised in a heavy

historicised context, creating a place that is

by the designers to establish an articulated

terracotta cloak made from ceramic tiles

anchored into the city and makes sense of an

southern edge to an ambiguous site, while the

whose red colour speaks with the city’s roofs-

undefined site. It offers a place that reestab-

bulk of the structure’s mass is removed from

cape, acting as a piece of drapery reinforced

lishes old urban linkages and creates contem-

the square, dictated by the parking under-

by the scale-like tectonic tiles. When facing

porary cultural relationships, allowing visitors

neath. The southern edge is further defined

the park, the facade peals away, perforated by

to re-examine the city in the present.

by the addition of a new bus station with a 280

windows that open onto smaller private spac-

086 / 087

foot canopy just west of the concert hall.

is intended to redefine the character of the

“People may not know what country Bruges is in, but they know what it’s famous for. So we can start from this historical, cultural expression - and respect that - but let’s not stop with that; let’s not keep the place as a museum.” // Hugo de Greef, theatre director and advisor for international cultural policy

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ROYAL OPERA HOUSE AND PLAYHOUSE

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DENMARK COPENHAGEN

//

City Center 30 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 1,950,522

City Population 559,440

Metropolitan Density 1,670/sq mi

Population Density 19,000/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $21.1 Billion (city)

A 1000-year-old harbor town located in the Øresund Region of

Denmark, Copenhagen has been viewed as a metaphorical bridge between Northern Europe and Scandinavia. It is a city that transcends from its historical appeal of copper spires, cobbled squares and pastelcolored town houses, to a thriving modern metropolis of cutting edge designers, efficient transport systems and environmental awareness.

Before becoming the capital and largest metropolitan area in Denmark the city originated, like so many other Scandinavian cities, as a small fishing village; with it’s occupants taking advantage of the sheltered waters around a region called Slotsholmen Island. By the 12th century, Slotsholmen had been fortified by Bishop Absalon (Danish archbishop renowned as the founder of Copenhagen) in keeping with the settlements growing aspirations and important commercial status, a status signified by it’s name, Komandshavn, the “port of the merchants”, later amended to Kobenhavn. After the coronation of Christian IV of Denmark in 1596, the city was significantly enlarged by the addition of new city districts and modern fortifications, along with the construction of numerous significant civic buildings designed to enhance his pretige. By the time of his death, Copenhagen had become the centre of trade and power in Northern Europe. However, destruction would soon follow, as large fires and a British bombardment/invasion would ravage the urban fabric for more than a century. With most of the medieval town destroyed, city planners used the dramatic increase of free space to update the urban infrastructure, as well as expand the city centre into new territories for housing, emerging as a major European

portation. In fact, ever since city planners turned Copenhagen’s traditional main street (Strøget) into a pedestrian thoroughfare in 1962, the public has gradually turned away from the car, adding more pedestrian-only or pedestrian-priority streets and turning parking lots into public squares. The broad expanse of relaxed, traffic-free environments, lead to a refreshing world of lively streets, colorful squares and hidden corners, where pedestrians are the priority. The resulting effect has kept Copenhagen’s horizontal skyline low-slung and densely spaced, honoring a human scale and kept residents safe from the blistering cold winds the city occasionally faces, while successfully animating a new urban culture and attracting more residents to live closer to the city center (now 70% of the population live in urban area) - eliminating a dependence on the car. In 1992, as the city limits started to expand, construction began on a major new underground Copenhagen Metro train system. Completed in 2002 (while more expansions are currently underway), the added rail system only reinforces the attitude of the city, creating an inheritably pedestrian city.

There is no doubt that the last ten years of the city’s development and expansive building activity in Copenhagen will stand out as a very important decade in the city’s history. As the government has decided to keep the historical center free of large high-density buildings, several areas will see massive urban development. Former industrial and harbor areas have already been converted into city districts and whole new neighborhoods have emerged, consisting of numerous innovative

capital once again.

housing schemes and commercial buildings, changing the city’s sky-

Sometimes referred to as “the City of Spires”, Copenhagen is known

and sustainable ideas (long associated with Copenhagen’s design

for its horizontal skyline, only broken by spires at churches and castles.

Walking through the city, you realize that Copenhagen has a multitude of districts/neighborhoods that create a dense urban fabric, each representing its time and own distinctive character, but all sharing a common denominator: water. Whether it be near a medieval canal, artificial lake, old harbor, beach shoreline, artificial island or even the strait of Øresund, the city is immersed by maritime culture. This ongoing relationship with the city’s aquatic context, along with narrow medieval street grids, can prove to be difficult in terms of access and traffic infastructure, which explains the city’s car congestion problems and emphasis on more sustainable (pedestrian/bicycle) modes of trans-

line and feeding Danish design aspirations. In addition, public spaces practices) have increasingly come to play a key role in the evolution of the city. Ørestad is one of those recent developments, located on the island of Amager near Copenhagen Airport (the largest in Scandinavia), it currently boasts one of the largest malls in Scandinavia and a variety of office and academic buildings, such as IT University and a high school. Connected primarily through the new Metro train system, the area is also a redefinition of suburban lifestyles with residential complexes that challenge conventional thinking by combining the splendors of the suburban backyard with the social richness of urban density. When construction is finished, Ørestad is expected to house up to 20,000 new inhabitants and provide up to 80,000 new jobs.

COPENHAGEN

100 m 250 ft

55.6815째 N, 12.5977째 E

Development Development Area Building Area

Copenhagen Inner Harbor 861,113 sqft 226,044 sqft (xxxxxx sqft footprint)

Audience Capacity

1,000 (650 xxx / 250 xxx / 100 xxx)

Completion Date

02.2008

Estimated

$138,000,000

Architects

Lundgaard & Tranberg

Bldg Cost

Users

The Royal Danish Theater

Development Development Area Building Area Audience Capacity Completion Date

Copenhagen Inner Harbor 861,113 sqft 441,320 sqft (xxxx sqft footprint) 1,400 - 1,800 (xxxx) 01.2005

Estimated Bldg Cost

> $500,000,000

Architects

Henning Larsen Architects

Users

The Royal Danish Theater

094 / 095

CAR-FREE CULTURE

Amager Square 950.0 m

City Hall Square 0.0 m

New Market Square 400.0 m

Kvæsthusbroen 2350.0 m

King’s New Square 1350.0 m

Ny

hav

n

Diagram showing the uninterrupted path of car-free zones from City

Hall Square to Kvæsthusbroen. A total distance of 2350m (7710 ft)

096 / 097

The car-free streets of Strøget

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Amagertorv Square, part of the Strøget pedestrian zone

?

?

KONGENS NYTORV

OLD STAGE

?

NEW DEVELOPMENT UNDER CONSIDERATION, CURRENT LEASE EXPIRES IN 2017

PLANNED DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED NEW DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

// For centuries, Copenhagen had

buildings on the decks of giant freight-

by a separate design studio. Henning

depended on its Inner Harbor (Inder-

ers, demanding enormous ports with

Larsen Architects was commissioned

havnen) and the strong maritime net-

vast areas of land for daily operations.

to analyze the Inderhavnen area and

work the area has served to the Baltic

Copenhagen and virtually every large

outline different alternative solutions to

Sea. Developed as a deep channel that

historical port city had developed simi-

exhibit the possibilities of new urban

cuts between two islands, the harbor

lar symptoms: dilapidated docks, aban-

growth on the waterfront. The conclu-

was the center of urban activity, teem-

doned warehouses, and fences sealing

sion of the work relied on mixing resi-

ing with lively, exotic, dirty, and some-

downtown off from the quieted waters.

dential and commercial buildings with

times dangerous elements. But by the

The great urban project of the postin-

emphasis on large public cultural in-

second half of the 20th century, the

dustrial age was to heal the coastal scar

stitutions to create a dynamic city life.

shipping industry had changed with

left by the evacuated maritime industry.

Functionally, no building was permitted

new technologies and greater demands

to “turn its back� to the harbor, compli-

on urban infrastructure. Proximity to

In 2000, the municipality of Copenhagen

menting already defined plans of pub-

the downtown was becoming obsolete

initiated a development strategy for the

lic promenades and squares along the

as goods were packed into huge steel

entire harbor area, divided into three

entire harbor fairway with public prom-

containers stacked by cranes the size of

geographical sections, each analyzed

enades and squares along the entire

Henning Larsen’s proposal for Copenhagen’s Inner

strong reaction to the congested auto-

from Radhuspladsen (City Hall Square)

stressing and strengthening waterfront

mobile culture in downtown Copenha-

to the large bustling square of Kongens

activities. The large cultural ‘magnets’

gen. Evolved from one clogged traffic

Nlytorv (King’s New Square). Nyhavn,

would later be defined as the Royal

artery, the city began systematically

one of the oldest waterfront districts in

Danish Playhouse and the Copenhagen

banishing cars from gracious squares

the city, soon would follow the trend. In

Opera House.

and narrow streets that had degener-

the 1980s the large car-park and once-

ated over time, encouraging people

forlorn canal of Nyhavn was incremen-

Two of Copenhagen’s most significant

to commute by foot or bicycle again. A

tally converted into a pedestrian area

urban redevelopment projects would

controversial plan at the time, it is now

that was immediately invaded by cafés

assist in Henning Larsen’s proposed

one of the longest pedestrian streets in

and shops, full up all year round, be-

master plan for Inderhavnen - the ‘car-

Europe and is considered a highly influ-

coming Copenhagen’s most often por-

free zones’ of Strøget and Nyhavn. The

ential study in contemporary urban de-

trayed public space and a catalyst to the

sequence of streets known collectively

sign (influenced by Danish architect and

harbor’s waterfront development.

as Strøget was the beginning of a suc-

urban planner Jan Gehl). The sequence

cessful string of pedestrian-only streets

of streets is a major pedestrian boule-

developed in the 1960’s that became a

vard through the center of Copenhagen,

100 / 101

harbor fairway with the purpose of

Bars and restaurants lining the northern side of the Nyhavn waterfront

If, at the time, anyone had predicted that the city center would have six times as many car-free areas 34 years later, and that car traffic and parking possibilities would be substantially reduced, it would have been met with a great deal of skepticism. That life in the city center could flourish markedly would simply have been too unbelievable.� // Jan Gehl, Danish architect and urban designer

102 / 103

Site Plan

COPENHAGEN OPERA HOUSE // From the playhouse, it’s a short trip by water bus across the inner harbor to the Operaen (Copenhagen Opera House), donated to the Danish state by Denmark’s wealthest citizen and shipping mogul, A.P. Møller with the Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller Foundation, in 2000. Five years later, the 14-story structure rose up from a former naval base on Holmen Island - once the epicenter of Denmark’s military and industrial complexes - in the city harbor, completing the historical axis running through the Queen’s palace and the domed Marble Church. As one of the most expensive opera houses ever built (over $450 million) on a significantly visible piece of land in the harbor, the project brought a high-level of controversy, with politicians claiming the full cost of the project would be tax deductible, virtually forcing the government to buy the building, along with community leaders questioning the size and infrastructure needed for such a project. However, it would be the public disputes between Møller and his architects, Henning Larsen Architects, that would garner much of the attention during the construction of Denmark’s first opera house. After acquisition of the land, the architecture firm was handed the commission by Møller himself, as they had worked on numerous successful projects in the past. The Danish government, happy to receive such a generous gift, didn’t interfere when HLA was awarded the project without an architectural competition, commonly held in grand public projects of this type, or when Møller refused to discuss the design to the public during the four-year construction period. The architect, trying to make sure that the original architectural ideas were carried through the construction process, would consistently have disagreements with the client, who was viewed in the press to have dictatorial control over the entire project until completion in 2005. Henning Larsen would state before the building’s grand opening, “What we have now is a compromise which failed, and this makes me sad”.

104 / 105

106 / 107

Building Section

From around the city's harbor waterfront, the Opera adver-

apartment blocks on the north and south side of the building.

tises itself with a distinctive size and central position in the

Unfortunately, the location of the project and focus on mari-

Copenhagen cityscape. Anchored on a site, once abandoned

time siting has disconnected the Opera House with down-

and neglected for years by the military, that has gone through

town Copenhagen. As it stands now, the project sits alone

a metamorphosis. In connection with the new master plan,

(the proposed residential projects have not gone forward) on

the existing island was separated by two new 17 meter-wide

three large islands in the middle of Copenhagen's Inner Har-

canals into three islands, accentuating the placement of the

bor, with limited access for all forms of transportation. The

Opera House on the central island and emphasizing the mari-

'Copenhagen Harbour Bus' is realistically the only option for

time location of the structure. In designing the project, key

pedestrians and bikers to reach the Opera island from across

attention is given to the arrival plaza, framed by a 32m long

the harbor, which can be problematic with certain weather

floating roof overhang that draws the public towards a vast

conditions. Additionally, unlike the Royal Danish Playhouse,

transparent foyer looking right over the harbor toward Ama-

the Opera House does not allow public access to the build-

lienborg Palace (Queen's Residence). The front of the house

ing when performances are not showing, with no accessible

is visually integrated in the harbor space, whereas the back

watering hole (restaurants or cafes) to enjoy the vast arriv-

of the building, designed as a lower building block, relates to

al plaza on the waterfront, creating a somber environment

the vernacular structures in the area and to the proposed new

throughout the day.

108 / 109

110 / 111

ROYAL DANISH PLAYHOUSE //

Since the 1880s, the Royal Danish Theatre had sought to relieve a congested home theater -

the Old Stage - by expanding the Royal Playhouse drama company into a new building that would showcase the city’s latest trends in acting. A suitable site and proper financing would not develop until around 2000 when international ferry operations would be relocated from Kvæsthusbroen Landing Stage, near Nyhavn, to a new DFDS terminal in the northern part of Copenhagen harbor. This relocation made the site at Kvæsthusbroen open to new development, later sold by Port of Copenhagen, Ltd. to the Danish Ministry of Culture, creating the possibility of building a new public arts center on the waterfront, eventually becoming the new Royal Danish Playhouse. After winning an international design competition, Danish architectural practice Lundgaard and Tranberg was chosen for the task, with construction beginning in 2004.

The building’s design acknowledges three important site features: a revitalized Nyhavn region with heavy pedestrian traffic, a strong promenade along the Inderhavnen waterfront, and panoramic views of Copenhagen’s historic skyline. The harbor becomes the important component as the architects chose to move the theater forward into the harbor (about 40% of the building projecting over the water), with the visitors entering on gently sloping ramps, which, besides being the point of arrival, serve as a promenade pivoting around the playhouse, diverting pedestrians onto a raised 150m long walkway that affords panoramic views of the harbor and hosts an open cafe/restaurant. The tripartite abstract composition of the playhouse benefits the siting, as the continuous horizontal upper storey of private functions cantilever out above the water, creating a tall glazed public foyer that invites shelter and integration of the waterfront’s broad promenade public space, injecting new life into the central part of the inner harbor that forms the continuation of Nyhavn.

Site Plan

112 / 113

114 / 115

Building Section

The building’s design acknowledges three important site features: a revitalized Nyhavn region with heavy pedestrian traffic, a strong promenade along the Inderhavnen waterfront, and panoramic views of Copenhagen’s historic skyline. The harbor becomes the important component as the architects chose to move the theater forward into the harbor (about 40% of the building projecting over the water), with the visitors entering on gently sloping ramps, which, besides being the point of arrival, serve as a promenade pivoting around the playhouse, diverting pedestrians onto a raised 150m long walkway that affords panoramic views of the harbor and hosts an open cafe/ restaurant. The tripartite abstract composition of the playhouse benefits the siting, as the continuous horizontal upper storey of private functions cantilever out above the water, creating a tall glazed public foyer that invites shelter and integration of the waterfront’s broad promenade public space, injecting new life into the central part of the inner harbor that forms the continuation of Nyhavn.

116 / 117

MATERIALITY

118 / 119

//

Since the completion of the new Copenhagen Opera

file to allow for views across the harbor, as well as smaller con-

House, city officials have realized the area’s need for connec-

ventional single-leaf and double-leaf bascule structures over

tivity and have been intent on looking for a solution to improve

the harbor canals. When complete, these connections should

access from central Copenhagen to ‘Opera Island’ across the

transform the Inderhavnen area, finally merging opposing sides

harbor. When the Royal Danish Playhouse was completed

of the harbor with a strengthening horizontal movement and

back in 2008, there was consideration for a pedestrian and

indentifying with Copenhagen’s urban culture.

bicycle bridge to link the Playhouse with the Opera, however plans to build bridges in the area have met heavy criticism from those living in Christianshavn, who were afraid that they would have a detrimental affect on the characteristic maritime environment of the quarter and that the bridges will mean that sailing boats will no longer have access to the area. After years of various proposals and competitions, with even a underground tunnel considered, the city agreed on a new network of openable pedestrian bridges - a long bridge over the inner harbor and shorter bridges over some of the canals - that would increase access to the Opera and the surrounding Holmen region. The winning designs, slated to begin construction, consist of a longer retractile bridge with a transparent/low pro-

Almost sitting in front of each other, these two projects express a growing strategic consensus in urban design that demands the urban waterfront be a public amenity, but deviate on the processes needed to achieve such a goal. Although both are driven by a common client (Royal Danish Theatre) and an idealistic masterplan, one that encourages the assemblage and a focused convergence of cultural institutions, both are developed by contradicting processes - public opinion v. private decision, urban integration v. remote separation, programmatic expression v. grand gestures. But, both share a commonality as lanterns on the waterfront, glowing from within their grand foyers, waiting to attract interest from society and urban growth through the cultural Renaissance of Copenhagen.

120 / 121

122 / 123

CONCERTGEBOUW BRUGGE (CONCERT HALL)

124 / 125

COPENHAGEN 100 m 250 ft

55.6580째 N, 12.5888째 E

DENMARK COPENHAGEN

//

City Center 30 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 1,950,522

City Population 559,440

Metropolitan Density 1,670/sq mi

Population Density 19,000/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $21.1 Billion (city)

South of the capital city, Ørestad is a developing urban quarter growing out of a metro line placed between Co-

penhagen’s historical downtown district and the city’s international airport, located on the island of Amager. Burdened with low economic growth and high unemployment at the end of the 1980s, the Danish Parliament passed the ‘Act of Ørestad’ in 1992 (first Act of Parliament in thirty years where the state was involvement in a major new urban development project), creating the idea for a new major urban development scheme that would act as a ‘city annex’ attracting innovative national and international ventures, supported by a series of important infrastructure investments including a new metro line and the Øresund Link (tunnel/bridge project to Malmö, Sweden). Financing such an expansive project would be inspired by the English New Town principles, to which new infrastructure be subsidized by the incremental land value created by the very same Metro. By building Ørestad, Copenhagen not only financed the Metro, but also a new urban quarter that would usher Copenhagen out of financial crisis and create a testing ground to display the city’s new ideas in architecture and city planning. In 1994, the winning project of an international architectural competition by a Finnish-Danish architecture studio (KHR Arkitekter) revealed an overall masterplan for Ørestad, dividing the area into four smaller districts, focused on integrating a highly-dense and modern city with the surrounding natural environment, forming attractive recreational access and sustainable planning to future residents / companies of the area.

Located off the first new Metro stop from Copenhagen, Ørestad North (University District) is the most developed of the four areas of Ørestad. Focused around the masterplan’s idea of a central “village green”, the Landscape Canal and the north-south-oriented University Canal define the new urban construction of The University of Copenhagensouthern campus. Each building would ensure contact to a functional outdoor space and the strong axis of the artificial University Canal, creating a powerful pedestrian hierarchy with a connection to nature. In 1999, state-owned Danish media company (DR) decided to join Ørestad North’s campus to concentrate all of the company’s activities from the metropolitan area into one address. DR Byen (DR’s new headquarters, referred to as ‘DR City’) is a fourcomponent complex that would account for all Danish Radio’s offices, TV, radio, and orchestra productions under one roof, even including a new state-of-the-art concert hall (Koncerthuset) for the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, further advancing Ørestad’s goal of promoting progressive arts and technologies in the region. Unfortunately, DR Byen’s construction process accumulated a range of controversial public outcries over budgetary concerns, allegedly due to the complexity of the concert hall, leading to high-profile resignations and drastic cutbacks in DR staff and public funding. In all, the entire project would cost almost three times as much as budgeted (up to $300 million), making the DR Concert Hall one of the most expensive concert halls ever built.

CONTEXT

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Area of Ørestad’s urban quarter between Copenhagen’s historic downtown area and the international airport. Red area locates Ørestad North or ‘University District’.

Development Development Area Building Area

Ă˜restad / DR Byen Campus

Estimated

Bldg Cost

$300,000,000

33,454,080 sqft 279,861 sqft (xxxxx sqft

Architects

Ateliers Jean Nouvel

footprint) Audience Capacity

2,050 (800 xxxx/ 550 xxxxx / 350 xxxx/ 350 xxxxx)

Users

Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Completion Date

01.2009

DR Byen

130 / 131

MASTER PLAN

Current layout of Ørestad North (University District), the most developed of the four areas of Ørestad

KHR Arkitekter’s masterplan for the University of Copenhagen and Ă˜restad North, 1997 132 / 133

Building Section

DESIGN INTENT // Back in 2002, Jean Nouvel would win the competition to design the 590,000-square-foot concert hall, as the fourth and final segment to the DR Byen project. As the yet-to-be-finished ‘gate to Ørestad’, the site would prove to be problematic as it was clustered on a barren site in an emerging neighborhood, wedged between the new elevated metro and the remaining unfinished DR Byen projects. The architect would react with caution to the untested local conditions, as it was not reliable to judge the newly built-up surroundings with an urban potential that is impossible to evaluate. With no urban response, the question had to be switched. How can this project contribute to and survive the future of this site? According to Nouvel, the response would be the mystery of uncertainty. “The proposal consists of materializing the territory and providing it with the scale of an exceptional urban facility.

It will be a volume that will allow its interior to be guessed.”

Floor Plan

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?

NEW DEVELOPMENT PLANNED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION COMMUTER RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

Sitting behind the dematerialized envelope of blue glass-fiber skin that is draped over a commanding steel structural frame, the theater becomes an architectural anomaly. One that seeks to hide behind a curtain, but still calls for attention.

Nouvel’s design approach, both the container and the auditoriums and spaces within assume a vastly different character depending on the time of day you visit. During the day, the project sits as the figurehead of North Ørestad’s artificial canal, caging a shadowy figure that cannot be accessed with public intrusion, only to open at night as an ethereal object with the glitz of lights and images on the screened envelope, becoming a beacon of light 148 ft up in the air, calling to oncoming visitors. It is an urban alarm clock that can’t be set, only to awake the surrounding context when it wishes. The only problem is the site has not fully awoken to the theater’s tantalizing images, a stark opposition to the sterile desolation around it with swaths of undeveloped land with tufts of grass and mounds of dirt extending around it.

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“Building in emerging neighborhoods is a risk that has often proved fatal in recent years. When there is no built environment upon which to found our work, when we cannot evaluate a neighborhood’s future potential, we have to turn the question around: what qualities can we bring to this future? We can respond positively to an uncertainty by using its most positive attribute, that is, mystery. Mystery is never far from seduction.” // Jean Nouvel, Architect

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OSLO OPERA HOUSE

OSLO NORWAY City Center 175 sq mi Metropolitan Population 1,442,318

//

City Population 623,966

Metropolitan Density 420/sq mi

Population Density 3,600/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $34 Billion (city)

Norway is a country dictated by the harsh expansive wilderness, spread over an area almost

the size of Japan with a relatively low population of almost 5 million people. The area is deeply cut by the long, narrow inlets of fjords and dominated by a mountainous terrain containing some of the world’s largest glaciers, making only 3% of the entire country arable for cultivation. Historically, Norway has been mired in poverty, dependent on the export of natural resources (fishing, whaling & timber), without developing urbanization, and in political subjection to it’s Scandinavian neighbors. The Norwegian people, isolated and callous, worked through the impossible extremes of nature, developing a symbiotic relationship with the surrounding environment and created a nationalistic attitude for the future. By the end of the 19th century, Norway saw a new level of independence with the introduction of a parliamentary government leading to peaceful secession from Sweden in 1905.

Although considered small on the global spectrum, with a population of around one million people, the modern city of Oslo dominates the Norwegian landscape as the capital and most populous city in Norway. Without the grandeur of many larger European capitals, Oslo offers spacious park areas and forests, all within sight and sound of the sea, creating a level of connection to the surrounding context rarely seen in a modern city. Originally created as a fjord settlement during the Viking age, Oslo would not become a capital city until the 17th century, following a disastrous fire and while under Danish rule. The rebuilt capital city would be renamed Christiana, after the Danish King Christian IV, until 1905 when Norway broke with Sweden, reinstating the traditional name of Oslo twenty years later.

Considered one of the most expensive cities in the world, Oslo has gone through a rapid modernization in the past 50 years. Building from a profitable timber trade of last century, Norway has invested heavily into the oil industry, developing a national wealth that has created the internationalization of Norwegian culture and a growing Norwegian self-confidence that has transformed Oslo into the fastest growing city in Europe. New cultural, residential and commercial development projects are now seen going up throughout the city, especially around the once diminishing harbor area. A chance for the once struggling nation to embrace recent financial success and intuitive contextural relationships, creating a new urban form.

OSLO 100 m 250 ft

59.9075째 N, 10.7523째 E

“Norwegian architecture can be connected to a particular relationship between building and landscape that can be described by the ambiguity between resistance and interplay. Both the larger landscape and the individual site can put up a fierce resistance to cultivation and construction. At the same time, terrain and vegetation offer rich possibilities for adding qualities to human building. Some woud say that this ambiguity, given by the meeting between man and landscape, is a given general expression in the Norwegian culture.�

- Ola Bettum, Landscape Architect

Village of Undredal along the Aurlandsfjord

LANDSCAPE

Steven Holl’s Knut Hamsun Center in Hamarøy

Aerial view of Ålesund

Sverre Fehn’s Ivar Aasen Center in Ørsta

In a moonlit scene of a storm-ravaged coast, Norwegian painter Knud Baade creates an operatic landscape of a mythical Norway inhabited by an antiquated warrior. It is a common view from a country that is considered at the crossroads to nowhere, off in a corner of Europe, dominated by the harshness of the Artic-like landscape. And yet, as the warrior stares at the moon-lit clouds standing rock-like as the cliff he stands on, it celebrates a symbiotic relationship between the perseverance of the Norwegian people and the unforgiving nature that surround them. It is an image that activates all the senses, enticing one to explore, to climb, to view out into the unknown; a divine experience to all that follow the journey. Enter 2008 and the opening of the new

Oslo Opera House,

a large glacial building that embodies the spirit of Baade’s paintings, encouraging unrestricted exploratative motion and redefined perspectives while creating a new urban condition in the heart of Bjørvika Bay, a vast developing area in the center of Oslo.

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Knud Baade’s ‘Scene from the era of Norwegian Sagas’, 1850 (from the private collection of Asbjørn Lunde)

Development Development Area Building Area

Bjørvika 2,603,739 sqft 414,000 sqft (xxxxx sqft

Estimated

$700,000,000

Architects

Snøhetta

Bldg Cost

footprint) Audience Capacity

1,964 (1,364 Main Hall / 200 Conference Hall / 400 Hall )

Completion Date

04.2008

Users

Norwegian National Opera and Ballet

146 / 147

// For centuries the Bjørvika pier has been one of Oslo’s

tural characteristic with 190,000 sq.ft. of sloping marble

economic lifelines and a point of contact with the rest of

roofscape growing out of the harbor’s waters. The defining

the world, however, like so many other historic harbor cit-

element was specifically designed as common property;

ies, the site became underused and in a state of decay

both a sculpted landscape and an topographic agora that

as harbor activity moved away from its central location.

allows free access for all, becoming a democratic source

In 1999, after tireless political and cultural championing,

of experience that is independent of other theater func-

the Norwegian Parliament decided that the Norwegian Na-

tions. The pattern of the roof landscape, designated as

tional Opera needed to move from its existing location in

artwork, is clad in a stone that traditionally has been used

Anchor Square and construct a new opera house in Oslo.

for public squares, sculpted as a jigsaw puzzle of tactile

With the passage of the Opera Bill and much debate over

qualities that encourages movement through different vi-

different site possibilities, an open design competition

sual perspectives and a heightened awareness of one’s

was announced for the Bjorvika region that would bring

surroundings. Ultimately, the sculpted roof exhibits the

in hundreds of design proposals, along with attracting an

intention of the project, which is to return the location on

unprecedented amount of media attention and public in-

which the opera house was constructed to the public and

terest. The international jury would declare the Norwegian

it’s natural surroundings. A quality rarely seen in civic de-

design firm of Snøhetta the winner with a building concept

sign, ultimately speaking to one of Le Corbusier’s famous

based on three main elements: the Wave Wall, the Fac-

five points almost a century later. The roof garden, primari-

tory and the Carpet. The Wave Wall would develop into an

ly used to illustrate the concept of domestic architecture as

extensive oak wall that composes a literal threshold be-

a standardized, mass produced object, Le Corbusier still

tween the public and private functions of the project, while

emphasized the potential of restoring the area of ground

The Factory represents the production area that would

covered by the house and bringing the landscape into the

accommodate over 600 employees working in about 50

house with views and openness, blurring the relationship

professions and trades for the new Opera House. The final

between built structure and the surrounding environment.

element, The Carpet, becomes the most obvious architec-

Floor Plan

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Building Section

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OSLO CENTRAL STATION

NEW DEVELOPMENT

SØRENGA PIER

PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION METRO RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

After the opening in 2008, the Oslo Opera House project was con-

isolate a project, rather than accommodate within a city context.

sidered a success, both inside and outside, rising from the sea and

When the highly-debated Opera Bill was passed, it was understood

linking the fjord to the city. The white platform rapidly became one of

that the Bjørvika site was only possible with a new traffic solution,

Oslo’s most popular public properties, paired with the equally acces-

as well as a more expensive building and the unclear surrounding

sible Opera House foyer, granting visitors access to buy tickets for

ground conditions, making the price tag much higher ($840 million).

performances, eat in one of the restaurants, sit and enjoy a coffee,

The project would be formulated as a ‘footprint master plan’, making

visit the Opera Shop or just stroll around and immerse yourself in

it independent from the planning of the rest of the urban develop-

the atmosphere. The openness and horizontality became the most

ment in that area (referred to as Fjord City) and of the complicated

evident characteristics of the project. However, once you leave the

traffic situation. So, why choose to build an opera house dependent

boundaries of the site, the building that prides itself on accessibility

on a host of questionable considerations and for more money? The

and free movement becomes increasingly marginalized in a unde-

main motivation behind Bjørvika bay was to speed up urban develop-

termined context. Approaching the site from downtown Oslo today is

ment in the defunct region. The motto became “If you build it, they will

like being transported through a cattle corral, leading visitors through

come” and a few years after the Opera’s completion, the surrounding

restrictive enclosures toward greener pastures. Two pedestrian bridg-

area is slowly seeing progress. Recently, the Bjørvika Tunnel proj-

es, one from the north and the other from the west, lead visitors over

ect (the first immersed tunnel in Norway) was completed, bypassing

a moat of networked roadways, only to land and encounter another

most car traffic along the waterfront and allowing the removal of the

footbridge spanning an excavated channel (Opera Canal) that seper-

remaining E18 highway that separates the Oslo Opera House from

ates the Oslo Opera House from land. A series of events that would

the rest of the city.

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Site access / context

Diagram exhibiting current traffic conditions in Bjørvika, with heavy car traffic (red) cutting off the Opera House from downtown Oslo and only two pedestrian bridges (blue) allowing access. A new Bjørvika tunnel (dashed), the first immersed tunel in Norway, opened in 2010.

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MASTER PLAN

The Oslo Opera House can surely be seen as an invigorating urban presence in the quickly redeveloping Bjørvika district. A building designed to not be seen, but to actively engage both occupants and visitors, elevating them out of the city on an unprecedented urban device that is developed with Norwegian character. As one of Norway’s first opera houses, waiting 120 years to become reality, it surely has an attractive programmatic force that can attract visitors, but it is that powerful integrated public landscape creating a ongoing dynamic relationship that is able to transform an entire area, seen in such examples as New York’s High Line and Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park. The architecture becomes an activity rather than a singular object, able to entice human experiences of movement, conversation, performance, assembly and so much more. Like Baade’s warrior on the coastal rocks, one can stand on top the Opera’s glacial structure and experience their own transcendent journey.

Looking south toward the artificial peninsula of Sørengautstikkeren

The ‘Barcode Project’ in Bjørvika

DEICHMAN MAIN LIBRARY MUNCH MUSEUM

Masterplan of Bjørvika region around the Opera House

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Proposal for the Oslo Public Library (design by Lund Hagem Arkitekter)

“This building has led to a discussion of the whole surrounding area, traffic, adjoining functions and the openness of the urban spaces. There has been a lot of discussion about how to make these areas as vibrant as possible; a discussion that demonstrates that public attention has really been alerted to the importance of urban development and public space.�

- Trond Giske, former Minister of Culture

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MATERIALITY

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“The building is not an icon. It’s trying to be the opposite. Because once you allow the public to move about the roof, it is they who generate the expression of the building, rather than the building itself.”

- Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, architect and co-founder of Snøhetta 162 / 163

HELSINKI MUSIC CENTER

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HELSINKI

100 m 250 ft

60.1738째 N, 24.9349째 E

FINLAND HELSINKI

//

City Center 276 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 1,358,901

City Population 604,380

Metropolitan Density 1,184/sq mi

Population Density 7,323/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $22.2 Billion (city)

Finland and Norway share many qualities. Both have a low

in control of Finland, Tsar Alexander I guaranteed Finland’s au-

population density, both are relatively young, independent nations

tonomy, but required the primary city of the Finnish territory to be

that have struggled with their Nordic neighbors, both sit isolated

closer to Saint Petersburg, designating Helsinki as the new capital.

up in the northern stretches of Europe, but both do not share fa-

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Revolution en-

miliar topography. Finland can often be referred to as a country of

abled the Finnish senate to declare independence from Russian

‘forests and lakes’, with more than 180,000 large lakes, numerous

rule and emerge as a self-confident, modern nation.

wetlands and a tree coverage of nearly 70% in the entire country, the world’s highest concentration. Rather than the sharp jagged

Apart from the city’s turbulent geopolitical past, the current condi-

rocks of the Norwegian fjord regions, Finland is informed by the

tion of Helsinki remains as modern as any other European urban

smooth organic coastlines of their lake regions and the expansive,

center, yet it is counterbalanced by the expansive nature of the

colorful horizon of wide skies and woodlands. The country’s gen-

Finnish landscape. Occuping a peninsula, surrounded by an ar-

eral area is considered a flat expanse of territory with a small topo-

chipelago of islands, the capital city seems to meld with the Baltic

graphical change compared to mountainous Norway, but that does

Sea as half of the city appears to be water with a number of bays

not change the Finns’ general, deep respect and understanding for

and inlets along the complex coastline. Closer to the urban cen-

nature that has always been trodden lightly with urban expansion.

ter, the architectural language becomes a reflection of the city’s historic struggle with eastern and western ideologies. The central

Considered one of the world’s great survivors, Finland has had

area around Senate Square, designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, are

to contend with a harsh northern climate and a hostile Nordic-

a neoclassical imperial reference to Russian rule, while residen-

European world, trapped between the aggressive ambitions of two

tial areas throughout the city express an art nouveau, or Jugend,

historical heavyweights: Sweden and Russia. In the 12th century,

mentality that is inspired by Finnish culture and traditions. In the

the area of Finland was considered a fully consolidated part of

bitter WWII postwar years, Helsinki’s industrial and business life

the Swedish empire, an unruly battleground between the east

began to grow rapidly, expanding the urban core significantly, with

and west empires for Northern European dominance. King Gus-

the 1952 Olympic Games symbolizing the city’s gradual revival.

tav Vasa of Sweden established Helsinki in 1550 on the northern

Finnish architects, led by Alvar Aalto, would take pride in the young

coast of the Gulf of Finland as a competitor to the Russian city of

country’s rapid economic growth and industrialization by empha-

Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia), a flourishing center of trade on the

sizing the importance of nationalism and geography in their work,

opposite shore. The small coastal town would never prove to be a

fusing the naturalism of Finnish romanticism from the previous

successful port city and was devastated by ongoing wars and fires,

century with modernist ideals. By the new millennium, Helsinki has

until Helsinki was revitalized by the construction of a giant island

become one of the most progressive and prosperous cities in the

fortress, Suomenlinna, in the 18th century as a defensive shield

Scandinavian region, if not the world, on the back of a booming

against Russian attack. However, after the Finnish War in 1809,

technology sector and a highly-regarded design and manufactur-

the fortress would prove to not be enough as Sweden was forced

ing industry, producing a great standard of living and education for

to cede the territory of Finland to Russia. Once the Russians were

the entire region.

Development Development Area Building Area Audience Capacity

Töölönlahti bay 700,000 390,000 sqft (xxxx sqft footprint) 1,704 (concert hall), 240 (orchestra rehearsal hall), 240 (chamber music hall), 140 (pipe organ hall), 206 (vocal music hall), 400 (Black Box)

Completion Date Estimated Bldg Cost Architects Users

04.2011 $249 Million LPR Architects Finnish Radio Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Sibelius Academy

168 / 169

Edward Isto’s “The Attack”

// As a young, war-torn country isolated in northern Europe,

The original central area plan by Alvar Aalto with Finlandia Hall in red

Decades later, as a response to the old center of eastern-influ-

Finland began the 20th century as a nation looking for an

enced Senate Square, community leaders were of the opinion

identity; with the ability to communicate regional cultural val-

that an independent Finland needed a central square of its own

ues and a nationalistic character, embracing a hostility to all

in the new, self-proclaimed center of the city around the vicin-

things Russian. A famous nineteenth-century painting by Ed-

ity of the recently completed Parliament House, a building that

ward Isto titled ‘The Attack’ in which a white-gowned young

symbolizes the status won in 1917. It was a coincidence that

Finnish woman defends her country’s law, as an emblem to its

right in front of the Parliament there lay a large railway freight

independence, against the Russian Eagle, would loom large

yard which was to be resited elsewhere; an older Alvar Aalto

in the national psyche. The situation would intensify just as a

thought that this area would provide a unique opportunity for

young Alvar Aalto came to Helsinki to study architecture. The

the realization of an idea, originally suggested by Eliel Saa-

city became the epicenter of events that led Finland to declare

rinen after the civil war. By the end of the 1950s, after countless

independence from Russia in 1917, only to be drawn into a civil

alternative plans were proposed and numerous competitions

war the following year, involving pro-western Aalto into numer-

reviewed, the planning committee would entrust Aalto with the

ous battles with pro-eastern forces. The subsequent victory for

task of formulating a central plan for Helsinki. The resulting

the independent nation would shape the future of the Finnish

master plan, encompassing Helsinki’s Töölönlahti bay, pro-

cultural community and influence Aalto’s nationalistic position

posed a terraced square with a variety of civic buildings placed

on architecture.

linearly along the waterfront, partly on ground and partly on

Senate Square Supporting Civic Buildings New central square around Töölönlahti Bay

Map of Helsinki

water, to allow an open view of the bay through the buildings. The area in front of the Finnish House of Parliament was envisioned as an open central area that acted as a new active center, concentrating the economic and cultural needs of the community, while connecting the eastern and western parts of the city. However, the plan became a piecemeal development under much debate, with only the concert and conference house of Finlandia Hall to see completion, leaving the only building in an imposing position in its relatively natural surroundings. His master plan, first presented in 1961, would never be carried out in its entirety, but Aalto’s ideals on a new urban landscape based on a humanistic design approach that enhanced the progressive and democratic nature of the city, would give relevant and realistic possibilities toward the future use of the site.

Senate Square 170 / 171

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FINLANDIA HALL

Töölönlahti Bay

Parking lot adjacent to Finlandia Hall

As the only piece to materialize from Alvar Aalto’s central Hel-

the distinct staircase foyers of the concert building and its ter-

sinki master plan, Finlandia Hall represents a larger vision for

raced lobbies oriented toward Töölönlahti bay create a collec-

the city; built on democratic values, cultural aspirations and

tive setting for public events, once thought to support a pro-

strategic siting. One of the last projects to be overseen by the

posed urban landscape as a square for social engagement,

influential architect, the project was split into two phases, with

completely free from vehicular traffic, unfortunately now faces

the concert building constructed in 1967-71, and the confer-

various degrees of undefined land parcels and an abundance

ence wing four years later. Finlandia Hall can be viewed as a

of surface parking. The commonality of the project comes from

building with two sides, different in scale and character; one

the building’s material expression, as the prevalent use of the

toward the bay (east) and the other toward Hesperia Park and

white Carrara marble not only becomes a contrasting element

Mannerheimintie street (west). The principle entryway, fac-

to the black granite interior, but more importantly generates an

ing west, is a sculpturally winding facade with expressive and

influential link to Mediterranean classicism culture, a move that

humanist aspirations that is married with the natural settings

Aalto believed gave Finland the right to exist in western cultural

of Hesperia Park, following Aalto’s thinking that one should

society.

always enter a building through nature as a singular experience. Conversely, on the ‘public side’ of the eastern facade,

Following the completion of Finlandia Hall and the abandon-

Finlandia Hall’s concert hall

donment of Aalto’s proposed axis of public buildings to the

ever, in 1993 a new Opera House would be built on the site,

north, Hesperia park’s importance in the urban fabric would

flanking Hesperia Park to the north and providing the Finnish

grow as one of the largest and most popular public parks in

National Opera and the city of Helsinki with a state-of-the-art

central Helsinki. Having a symbiotic relationship with Finlandia

facility. The completion and success of the Finnish National

Hall; a building designed with intentions to preserve the sur-

Opera House would put into motion something that Finlandia

rounding landscape, the park would encourage a refuge for

Hall and Alvar Aalto started years earlier; a strong pedestrian-

pedestrians to be led away from the narrow sidewalks of traf-

oriented cultural center for the city. Five years later, the Muse-

fic-heavy Mannerheimintie road, creating a much larger area

um of Contemporary Art Kiasma would open on the southern-

for exploitation of pedestrian traffic. The surrounding area of

most site of Töölönlahti Bay based on an incremental planning

Töölönlahti Bay would be left almost untouched up to the end

process. Designed by Steven Holl Architects, the building was

of the 20th century, acting as a natural threshold between the

envisioned as an element that would dovetail with the urban

city center to the south and numerous civic developments

structure of the city as well as with the natural environment of

around the area, including the 1952 Olympic Stadium complex,

the park’s surrounding landscape, creating a linear progression

Linnanmäki amusement park, Helsinki City Theatre, Finnish

of major cultural institutions along Mannerheimintie road and a

Museum of Natural History and Aalto’s House of Culture. How-

foundation for a more ambitious development plan.

174 / 175

Kiasma contemporary art museum

Kiasma Park, looking west toward Parliament House

Finlandia Hall

Villa Hagasund (museum)

Remnant of warehouse complex

Helsinki Central Railway Station

176 / 177

Finnish Opera House on Töölönlahti Bay

Finlandia Hall and congress center

NEW // Residential and Commercial blocks Villa Hakasalmi

Parliament House NEW // Pavilion from existing warehouse structure

NEW // Helsinki Central Library

Sanomatalo Building

Kiasma contemporary art museum

Proposed Toolonlahti Development

Helsinki Central Railway Station

TOOLONLAHTI BAY // The Töölönlahti area would become among the most prominent regions in the Helsinki city centre by the start of the new millennium. As a former state railyard, flanked by Helsinki’s central train station and Parliament House, the southern section of the site offered city officials the land and the potential for a new dynamic urban square, embracing the cultural and recreational attitude that has evolved in the area for years. The new master plan, developed by the City of Helsinki, calls on Töölönlahti Bay to become what Alvar Aalto and his fellow compatriots once envisioned for the city, an utopian centre of cultural activity and a “living room” for the Helsinki people. Energetically refered to as Finlandia Park, the new development will grow from a southern extension of the bay, from its present shorelines to behind Finlandia Hall, with a shallow water element further extending all the way to Kiasma. A new concert hall is introduced across from the Parliament House, further enforcing a cultural presence along Mannerheimintie road, while new residential and commercial blocks are planned on the eastern perimeter, acting as an urban wall between the city’s rail system and the proposed park. Public congregation and movement would therefore be seen in the plan’s central axis, along the park’s new shoreline, further enforced by a oval-shaped dance pavilion and the new Helsinki central library. After the completion of the new concert hall (Helsinki Music Centre) in 2011, Finlandia Hall is now undergoing most of the work in the area with an expansion/renovation to adapt the Hall to its new role in the site. Plans are to remove the car ramp and parking area from the building’s eastern side, facing Töölönlahti Bay, leaving room for pedestrian use and accommodate a terraced café, which will be open to the public apart from serving Finlandia Hall’s functions. The parking spaces, which now occupy the back of Finlandia Hall, will be moved to a new underground parking facility that will serve all nearby buildings, effectively freeing the ground plane for more pedestrian-oriented activities. Within the next decade, it will be interesting to notice that some of Aalto’s then too utopian ideas for central Helsinki will finally be realized – 35 years after his death.

178 / 179

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Floor Plan

Since its completion in 1971, Finlandia Hall has served as Helsinki’s main classical music concert venue.

Unfortunately, persistent acoustic problems would plague Aalto’s acclaimed building, making it out to be more of a conference venue than a concert hall. Moreover, despite repeated and persistent efforts spanning the past century, Helsinki has never had a true orchestral concert hall specifically designed and intended for the performance of symphonic music. However, after the much-debated detailed town plan for the Töölönlahti Bay area was accepted in 2002, an architectural competition was announced for a new Music Hall that would reinforce the new component master plan. The Helsinki City Board chose a site located in front of the Parliament House, a site that was historically valuable, loaded with symbolism and ultimately controversial as demonstrations would develop in support of the existing structures in the area, leading to a mysterious fire that would ultimately destroy everything on the site.

182 / 183

Main Concert Hall

Hall for Vocal Music

184 / 185

DESIGN INTENT The winner of the competition, entitled ‘a mezza voce’ (with moderate volume)

by LPR Architects, was the most subtle, influenced by a fundamental Finnish

appearance with an authentic choice of materials and a composition that pays

homage to Functionalist design. Ideally, the project sought to be open and accessible to its environment, but it would ultimately be limited by its location. Be-

cause of the tight restrictions of the master plan concerning building height in the proximity of the Parliament House, a large part of the program is squeezed

underground so that it almost seems to be bowing down to its surroundings.

Following the completion of the Music Centre, Kiasma Park would soon fol-

low, creating a terraced ‘wedge’ landscape that connects the new theater to Kiasma museum and, ultimately, to the future develop of Finlandia Park. Finlandia Hall would change as well, as most performances have now moved to the Music Centre, focus is more on its other role as a congress centre, serving as a venue for government events, trade fairs and exhibitions.

The Planning of Töölönlahti Bay area is a story with two distinct chapters.

One believed in a harmonic, but comprehensive plan dictated by the natural

surrounding of the Finnish Landscape. The other, an incremental approach to planning through competitions, eventually formalizing a binding master plan around an artificial landscape. Both, Finlandia Hall and the Helsinki Music

Centre, can be said to represent these two different sides of Helsinki’s cultural center, although each share the importance in creating a civic environment based on a Finnish geo-political aspiration. It is hard to say how successful

Helsinki’s proclaimed ‘Finlandia Park’ will be, in terms of civic engagement and urban aspirations, as construction continues to take over the historic rail yard.

But, the power lies in the inclusion of residential/commercial components, along with programmatic-led events, that encourage a diverse undertaking in combination with the Finnish nature ideology to create the assumed role of Töölönlahti Bay as the new monumental center for the country.

OPERA

PROPOSED LIBR ARY

NEW DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC

HELSINKI CENTRAL STATION

PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION COMMUTER RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

186 / 187

“In the days before printing, people needed - as symbols of their spiritual aspirations and to fulfill their longing for beauty - large and, above all, beautiful buildings. Temples, cathedrals, forums, theatres and palaces communicated history with greater clarity and sensitivity than old rolls of parchment ever could.� // Alvar Aalto, Architect

188 / 189

GRAND CANAL THEATRE

190 / 191

LANDSCAPE Lavished as the country with ‘a million shades of green’, much

rolling farmland, bleak hillsides of fissured limestone pave-

has been written about the beauty of Ireland, and an effort to

ment, vast peat bog lands and the light and water that continu-

re-create ‘civilized’ work from centuries of European artisits,

ously affect a reading of them. The commonality that threads all

musicians, and poets will not be attempted here. Instead, the

these juxtaposed conditions is a landscape that is permeated

people of this island nation, historically battered economically

by water, whether through its proximity to the coastline or to

and politically for centuries, find guidance and an untroubled

lakes, rivers, bogs and marshlands, and it is the way that pre-

expression in their natural surroundings. But, to understand the

cipitation moves through and over the ground that determines

Irish landscape is to comprehend a battered coastline of cliffs,

the visual form of the environment.

192 / 193

DUBLIN IRELAND

//

City Center 44.4 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 1,804,156

City Population 527,612

Metropolitan Density XXX/sq mi

Population Density 11,880/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $21 Billion (city)

Neatly divided by the Liffey River, the capital city of the Republic

of Ireland has had a recurrent history of both opulence and hardship.

Originally established as a Viking settlement in the 9th century, the British crown would claim sovereignty over the area following a Norman invasion centuries later, establishing the major defensive work of Dublin Castle as the center of English power for 700 years. Dublin would immediately prosper under new English control as a major trade area and become center of administrative rule in Ireland, leading to such prominent establishments as Trinity College, Ireland’s oldest university. By the 17th and 18th centuries, Dublin had grown to the second largest city in the British Empire (5th in Europe) and during this period is when a vast majority of the city’s most notable architecture and famous urban districts were developed. However, by the time of the Industrial Revolution, Dublin was seen to play no part in the historical movement, due to the passage of the Act of Union in 1800 that would transfer the city’s seat of government to Westminster Parliament in London, leading to a period of economic and political decline.

The Great Famine in the 1840s would make things worse, leading to a million deaths and over a million more emigrated to escape it, with over half of all immigrants to the United States from Ireland. The population of Ireland would not recover from that period, never returning to its 1840s level (8.2 million) since. The 20th century saw the rise of modern Irish nationalism and the ‘Easter Rising’ of 1916, which would led to an Irish Civil War resulting in significant amount of damage to

will find the bustling redeveloped district of Temple Bar, academic exuberance of Trinity College and, just below it, the pedestrianized shopping area of Grafton Street, leading to the city’s St. Stephen’s Green (the city center’s largest park). Move north, over the river, along the major north-south traffic thoroughfare of O’Connell Street and you encounter an urban context that is more monumentalized and sterile, with numerous government institutions and high-end shopping centers. The most notable instance in the area is the Monument of Light, the tallest structure in Dublin, which denotes the intersection of two important streets: A major north-south traffic thoroughfare of O’Connell Street and the main pedestrian shopping area of Henry Street.

In the 1990s and 2000s, fortunes for the island nation were about to turn from bleak to incredibly opportunistic, as suddenly the Irish were among the richest people in Europe with a booming economy. Politicians and property developers were anxious to take advantage of the positive economic landscape, adding much needed modernization to Dublin’s architectural scene. Most of the focus was on the East side of Dublin, where high-profile projects such as the Dublin Docklands city quarter and the new Aviva Stadium were completed. Architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen, writing in 2001 in the midst of economic prosperity, saw a tension between the booming Irish economy and the aspirations of architects who espoused critical regionalism in the late eighties and early nineties. He calls the approach of contemporary

Dublin’s city center and the ascension of an independent Ireland.

Irish architects “critical internationalism”. This approach allows for “re-

At first glance, modern Dublin can be characterized by its simplicity

sitions defining a common intellectual space. The increasingly interna-

and informality, living off a Georgian Dublin aesthetic from the heyday of centuries past. Most buildings entail large proportions or grand spaces, but with little extraneous adornment, a much simpler model to the decadence of their European neighbors, which has much to do with the country’s long run of economic constraints over simplistic design intentions. But what Dublin lacks in architectural ambitions, makes up for in civic vibrancy. Looking south of the River Liffey, you

search for a local specificity” while not precluding “a series of cross potional character of capital, clients, and uses in Ireland allows – perhaps forces – a direct connection to architectures happening throughout the world and in Europe especially.” It had been decades since Dublin had seen this much construction and development. Now that Ireland went from an economic high to a disastrous low....again, the country can reflect on the impact of this new society and architecture, letting the projects mature and see if they can truey be expressive of ‘an Irish-

DUBLIN

100 m 250 ft

53.3440째 N, 06.2392째 W

Cardiff Lane Ringse

nd Road

Grand Canal Dock (GCD) new development Site of the Grand Canal Theatre

DUBLIN DOCKLANDS // Comprising of 1,300 acres of land, the Dublin Docklands Development Area represents the Eastern territory of both the north and south banks of the river Liffey , the city’s geographical gateway to the Irish Sea and the rest of the world. Historically, the area suffered from little contact between the communties on both sides of the river, as the O’Connell Bridge was one of the only physical crossing-points until the late 19th century, forcing people to rely mainly on Liffey ferries to cross downstream. The south bank (Ringsend) would later develop into a prosperious port area, driving people and businesses steadily into the Docklands with prospects of jobs and undeveloped land. To this day, the area remains Ireland’s largest sea port, with nearly two-thirds of the country’s port traffic going through Dublin Port. During the mid-1990s, an economic boom would bring top international tech giants to the city and begin establishing headquarters in the area, creating an intense demand on the city’s limited housing stock. In 1997 the Dublin Docklands Development Authority Act was created to responsibilly generate a physical, social and economic regeneration in the East side of Dublin. The plan would transform the district into an extension of the city that would not only be the base for business and culture, but also a vibrant residential hub of 22,000 people who might otherwise move to the suburbs. The central core of the Docklands area, a toxic brownfield from a dormant gas production industry, would be transformed into a catalytic centerpiece of the new development called the Grand Canal Square, signalling the rebirth of the district and announce the Docklands as a new destination in the city.

Calatrava’s Samuel Beckett Bridge crossing the River Liffey in Dublin’s Docklands area

196 / 197

Looking down Chimney View toward Grand Canal Theatre

Dublin Docklands Development Project Grand Canal Dock (GCD) Development Area Site of the Grand Canal Theater Major Public Open Spaces Major Public Transportation Route

198 / 199

// The Dublin Docklands area has historically been an important part of the city of Dublin, but it has always been a difficult place to establish an alliance between industry and urban livelihood. The proposed redevelopment of the area would need an identity that would be immmediately recognizable and associated with the place. That event would occur at the central core of the Docklands area, called

Grand Canal Square, named after the historic Grand Canal that had connected trade cargo from Dublin to the River Shannon. The construction of the new square would be implemented months, and in some cases, even years before the rest of the Docklands development, in order to attract investment and excitement to the transforming neighborhood. At the heart of the new construction lies the Grand Canal Square Theatre, a structure that becomes the main facade of the large public piazza, framed by a five star hotel and residences on one side and an office building on the other.

Architect Daniel Libeskind would be selected to lead a group of designers and engineers to complete the theatre with the concept to build a cultural presence on the site by sculpting expressionistic glass volumes to convey a fluid and open public dialogue with the cultural, commercial and residential surroundings, while presenting various programmatic forces essential to the Theatre’s operation. The faceted entrance facade acts as a theatre curtain, projecting the ‘stages’ of the building’s multiple level theatre lobby onto the projected public piazza, creating an active visual edge onto a dynamic civic space. The dynamic volumes and large geometric structural ribs can also be said to evoke imagery of the docklad area as a composition of rippled water with protruding ‘ribs’ of wooden piers.

The Grand Canal Theatre is integrated into the planned commercial development of the Docklands by twin office buildings designed by Libeskind, flanking the theatre to the north and south and containing almost 500,000 square feet of leasable office and retail space. Like the Theatre, the office buildings provide multi-story glazed atriums with similar facade articulations, visually integrating the buildings with adjacnt retail, cultural and public space components. South Block and North Block, as the twin offices are named, help reinforce the boundary of the new urban square and form a theatrical gateway to Dublin Harbor.

Development Development Area Building Area

Grand Canal Dock 4,112,064 sqft 148,198 sqft (xxxx sqft Floor Area)

Audience Capacity Completion Date

2,111 03.2010

Estimated

$101,800,000

Architects

Daniel Libeskind

Bldg Cost

Users

Various Artists

200 / 201

Grand Canal Square

202 / 203

Floor Plan

NORTH BLOCK

?

PROPOSED U2 TOWER

SOUTH BLOCK

NEW BUILDING ADDITION PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION COMMUTER RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

//

Libeskind’s design for the Grand Canal Theater delivered a clear and

In a bold statement, the designers created a ‘red carpet’ that cuts across

compelling aesthetic to the newly-formed district, so rather than con-

though the square and up to the theater’s entrance, signaling that the

front it with a conflicting language the designers of Grand Canal Sqaure

“theater is open to the world”. The other end of the carpet extends out

(Martha Schwartz Partners) embraced the angularity of the entry facade

over the canal to the west, inviting visitors to connect with the waterfront

down to the ground plane, uniting the building and landscape into one

and the Dockland area. This move is further emphasized with 23-foot

larger compostion with a singular identity. The piazza compliments the

high red light poles angled out of the surface of the square, enabling color

interiority of the Theater, acting as a grand outdoor lobby, itself becom-

and energy to an otherwise colorless landscape (parking garage below

ing a stage for civic gathering with the dramatic theatre elevation as a

limits much vegetation growth). The light poles serve to soften the hard-

backdrop offering platforms for viewing. Most notably, is the fragmented

scape while breaking down the scale shift between the Theater and the

paving pattern across the entire open space, with sharp lines seemingly

expansive ground plane. The composition of both the square and Theater

continuing off the building’s architecture, creating a varied networks of

creates a dynamic urban gathering space, one defined by visual relation-

paths that reach out into the surrounding context to attract people into

ships, connection points and porous infastructure. It is a performance

and through the new plaza.

space both inside and out.

204 / 205

Grand Canal Square by Marhta Schwartz

Site Section

“The initial focus in people’s minds was on development and on the buildings, but no matter what the quality of the individual buildings, people’s overwhelming sense of place was going to be determined by that public space and the public realm of the wider district.”

- Martha Schwartz

MATERIALITY

206 / 207

“The concept….is to build a powerful cultural presence expressed in a dynamic volume. This volume is sculpted to express the various forces which create the urban piazza, the public space and inner workings of the theatre. This composition creates an icon that mirrors the joy and drama emblematic of Dublin itself.” // Daniel Libeskind, Architect

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CITY OF CULTURE OF GALICIA

210 / 211

SANTIAGO

100 m 250 ft

42.8700째 N, 08.5263째 W

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA SPAIN City Center 80 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 2,778,913

City Population 95,671

Metropolitan Density 240/sq mi

Population Density 1,111/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $2.9 Billion

// Primarily associated with one of the major themes

would continue its misfortune in the 19th century with

of medieval history, the city of Santiago de Compos-

the invasion of the French during the Napoleonic War

tela receives over 100,000 pilgrims a year by way of

and a fascist take-over during the Spanish Civil War

a thousand-year-old Christian pilgrimage (Camino de

in the late 1930s. After the Spanish Transition (1975),

Santiago) to the shrine of St. James in the Cathedral of

when democracy was restored to the country, Santiago

Santiago de Compostela. Donning the scallop shell (a

de Compostela was declared capital city of the autono-

symbol of the pilgrimage route) and a wooden walking

mous region of Galicia. Since the 1980s, the small city

staff, these visitors in search of spiritual significance

(around 100,000 residents) has been rediscovered as

travelled from across Europe (and the world) to the

a tourist and pilgrimage destination, revitalizing the

Galician sanctuary in Northwest Spain to worship at

city’s economic and cultural prowess year by year. In

the believed burial site of Saint James, one of the

1985 the Old Town of the city, including the cathedral

Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. The route, considered

and Praza do Obradoiro, was declared a UNESCO

one of the most important and well-travelled Christian

World Heritage Site. A city, defined by an extraordinary

pilgrimages in medieval Europe (along with Rome and

ensemble of Romanesque and Baroque monuments

Jerusalem) brought notoriety and monumental riches

organized around a sacred tomb fought over by em-

to this small city for centuries. However, by the end of

pires for centuries and the destination of all the roads

the Middle Ages, the area would succumb to squabbling

of Christianity’s greatest pilgrimage, has maintained its

noble rivalry, the Black Death pandemic, Protestant

monumental integrity that overflows with history and

Reformation and European political unrest, leading to

value, kept intact for future generations of visitors and

a sharp decline in prominence for centuries. The city

scholars to take notice.

Development Development Area Building Area

City of Culture 7,535,880 sqft 220,000 sqft (80,000 sqft footprint)

Audience Capacity

1,950 (1,500 Main Hall / 450 Small Theater)

Santiago de Compostela train station with The City of Culture in background

Completion

01.2011 (Phase 01)

Date

Estimated

$581,000,000 (All Phases)

Architects

Peter Eisenman Architects

Bldg Cost

Users

City of Culture Galicia Foundation, Santiago de Compostela

214 / 215

Old Town of Santiago de Compostela

216 / 217

MASTER PLAN // During the mid-1990s , a period of rapid regional com-

ing an extensive topographical architecture that would relate

petition in Spain - with the planning of the Guggenheim

to the neighboring granite hillsides - an acknowledgment

Museum in Bilbao and Valencia opening construction on

to both an immense building program and the surrounding

the City of Science and Art - city officials determined Gali-

Galician landscape. The resulting uniquelly-organic design

cia needed to join this cultural arms race and promote the

from Eisenman is derived from a condensation of multiple

region’s illustrious heritage to the world. In 1999 an inter-

patterns - first from the pilgrim routes that run through the

national architectural competition was initiated to create a 1

medieval ‘Old Town’ city center of Santiago overlaid on a

million-square-foot cultural complex with a short list of eleven

topographic map of the hillside site. Then, a geometric Carte-

finalists submitting proposals, all focusing on a beautiful hill-

sian grid is superimposed onto the site diagram and extruded

side site (Monte Gaiás) overlooking Santiago de Compostela

using new computer modeling software (at the dawn of the

to plan the new ‘City of Culture’. Organizers would acknowl-

digital age) to create a deformed topographic surface that

edge the proposed project would be a new place of pilgrim-

ripples in the landscape, incorporating old and new contexts

age toward a “city of knowledge and creativity”, a dynamic

into a singular building matrix. The composed massings can

addition to a region with a 1,200 year tradition of spiritual

seem to have both a smooth and striated tactile quality, a

passage. The proposal from New York architect Peter Eisen-

likeness to the symbolic seashell that has defined the city

man would eventually be chosen with a scheme embody-

and its history for centuries.

Interview Model illustrating massing of the complex

Model exposing the connection between Old Town and the CoC

RE

F YO

TU UL

C

T

CI

Central Services Building

Museum of Galicia

Performing Arts Theater International Art Center

Library of Galicia

Galician Archives

Praza do Obradoiro

OLD TOWN

218 / 219

Galicia Library in City of Culture

Entry corridor into City of Culture complex

Pazo de Raxoi along western side of Praza do Obradoiro

220 / 221

Praza da Quintana

Walking through the City of Culture site, one realizes the figure-ground urbanism of the original medieval city center is superseded to the project’s emerging deformed grid with sinuous surfaces that are neither figure nor ground, but read as one continuous stone-clad architectural composition.

The interstitial space between buildings is a familiar presence found in a new form with narrow pedestrian ‘streets’, carved and affected by its relationship to immediate building adjacencies, all emptying out onto a public plaza overlooking the inspiring Santiago skyline. The entire complex celebrates a regionalist expression with local hand-quarried quartzite (in brown, rose, and off-white hues) cladding all the walls and roofs in 20-inch blocks, proving to be hard for quarries to meet demand.

Although Eisenman’s proposal called for eight buildings, today the entire complex is conceived as three pairs of buildings (totalling six buildings with three construction phases), with the Library of Galicia (186,990 sqft) and Galician Archives (155,205 sqft) opened in 2011, followed a year later by the completion of the Museum of Galicia (223,889 sqft) and Central Services Building (80,729 sqft). The remaining two structures, the International Art Center and Center for Music and Performing Arts, are currently non-entities with uncertain futures that operate as two glaring holes in the site due to cost overruns, creating a lightning rod for debate.

222 / 223

Site of proposed Music Theater

Building Section

Main Hall // 1500 seats

Small Hall // 450 seats

Floor Plan

224 / 225

Although it is too early to fully evaluate a complex that is still unfinished, already it has become a focal point for debate regarding high cost, excessive space, and an ambiguous program. Intialally, the brief for the project called for a six-building complex on a 7 million sqft (160 acre) site for a budget of just around $145 million. Expectations were high when the project was launched during the economic ‘boom years’ and competition was fierce (Guggenheim opened years earlier to much international accalim). 12 years later, under the cloud of the ‘Great Recession’, the first two phases of the City of Culture would be completed at a budget far exceeding expectations ($385 million). Critics would soon unleash their frustration at the entire project, saying it became a symbol of government’s inappropriate spending during one of the worst financial periods in the country’s history (20% unemployment and 9% budget deficit). Meanwhile, the construction of the final two buildings (the Center for Performing Arts and Arts Center) had yet to be started, being continously delayed due to the economic downturn (along with all building activity in Spain). Of the two buildings, the Performing Arts Center was to be the ‘jewel’ of the complex, planned as the largest building in the complex at 137 feet high and housing over 2000 seats to promote Galicia to the musical and performing arts world. In 2013, with large construction expenditures for the arts not a high political priority and a Spanish economy showing no sign of improvement, the regional governor of Galicia supported a motion to “definitively” stop construction work on the complex, which would need another $228 million to finish. Currenlty, the City of Culture, Galicia’s answer to Bilbao, is little more than four large under-capacity buildings adjacent to two big holes in the ground. Last year, 330,000 would visit the Galician site that craved so much attention, compared to over a million visitors for Bilbao’s Guggenheim during the same period. It is an unfortunate result of bad economic timing and high (maybe unrealistic) ambitions that have halted this monumental task, but though still unfinished, it creates a pure architectural landscape that is unique in the world and can been seen as a serious investment to the region of Galicia.

NEW DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED NEW DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

226 / 227

“Instead of the ground’s being conceived as a backdrop against which the buildings stand out as figures, we generate a condition in which the ground can rear up to become figure, the buildings can subside into ground. It is a new kind of urban fabric” // Peter Eisenman, Architect

228 / 229

CASA DA MUSICA

230 / 231

PORTO PORTUGAL //

City Center 150 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 1,672,664

City Population 1,397,805

Metropolitan Density 888/sq mi

Population Density 14,856/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $43.3 Billion

At the mouth of the Douro River sits the historic hillside city of Porto, home to one of the oldest

urban centers (Ribeira district) in southern Europe and the second-largest city in Portugal. A mercantile city at heart, the area is strongely affected by its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, boasting a variety of architectural and cultural influences that have evolved for over a millennia. Originally founded by the Romans as a administrative and trading center under the name Portus (port), the city has seen a variety of urban development from numerous stylistic periods and militaristic conflicts by successive groups including the Swabians, Visigoths, Normans, and Moors. By the 11th century, the region would firmly be established as part of the Castilian realm after the crusade to drive the Moors out of Portugal and become part of a new kingdom. The first period of expansion would soon follow with the construction of a new town wall protecting the two urban nucleai - the medieval town and harbor area, making the entire city an impenetrable-like fortress, a component whcih can still be felt today. The complexities of the area’s landforms aided in this construction with a variety of buildings/walls built into the cliff faces that overlook the river, creating a maze of steep stairs and narrow cobbled streets that cut into the stone itself and run up and down the cliff.

Today, the Riberia Dirctict (a World Heritage site by UNESCO) still remains intact with a mixture of Roman ruins, medieval relics, soaring bell towers, extravagant baroque churches and venerable town houses piled ontop of one another, while a renewed infastructural system and cultural resurgance has the young and contemporary inhabitants moving from the banks of the river and into the city’s new sprawling cosmopolitan suburbs by the sea. Across the river, in the suburb of Gaia, the birthplace of port wine is evident in nearby Vila Nova de Gaia with numerous riverside wine caves jockeying for attention offering tastings and entertainment, becoming a popular nightlife district - leading to the city’s well-known marketing phrase “You’ve tried the wine; now try the city”.

The growing cosmopolitan city has perplexed those outsde of Porto, who considered the city to be more inelegant and working class than the rest of the country, likely due to the area’s long dominate mercantile history and lack of noble prescience, unlike its sister city to the South - Lisbon. However, while proudly Portuguese, the city holds itself apart from the rest of the country, knowing justifibly they are the economic heart of the nation with a higher sense of international culture and values.

PORTO

50 m 125 ft

41.1599째 N, 08.6345째 W

Santiago de Compostela train station with The City of Culture in background

234 / 235

Development Development Area

European Capital of Culture (2001) 1,829,203 sqft

Building Area

236,808 sqft (xxxx sqft footprint)

Audience Capacity

3,200 (1,238 Large Auditorium / 300 Small Auditorium)

Completion Date

04.2005

Estimated

$131,000,000

Architects

Office for Metropolitan

Bldg Cost

Architecture Users

National Orchestra of Porto, Orquestra Barroca, Remix Ensemble

//

In 1999 the European Union announced that Porto was selected as one of the two Cultural Capi-

tals of Europe in 2001 (along with Rotterdam), leading the Minister of Culture and the city to develop ‘Porto 2001’, an organization setup to initiate and produce different urban and cultural interventions within the city limits. In light of this event, a restrictive design competition was established by city officials, inviting five international architectural practices to develop a new concert hall and create a ‘symbol’ of the city to be positioned in the historical center of Porto - the Rotunda da Boavista.

The new project - The Casa da Musica - was meant to be the big attraction of Porto’s cultural year, but the tight 3-year construction schedule and a prolonged planning process made organizers realize it would be nearly impossible to meet the 2001 opening deadline. Neverless, Rem Koolhaas (OMA) would win the hurried design competition (with two firms not even meeting the deadline submission), proudly recycling an unrealized scheme from his office that was originally conceived as a Nigerian residence turned into a grand concert hall for Portugal’s second city in under two weeks - indicating the unstable and waning relationship between form and function in contemporary architectural thought. Ultimately, the design was preferred for its ability to connect with a much more diverse audience - proposing an adventurous curriculum that included a highly flexible chamber music hall, a cyber-music hall, teaching spaces for children and a multimedia production area aimed to attract not only the concert-going persuasion, but the rest of the city as well.

This is clear upon arrival to the completed project, finally finished in 2005 after lengthy negotiations with a myriad of city organizations. The new Concert Hall sits in sculptural solitary, posed in a public plaza of its own creation beside the historic circular Boavista park, punctuated by large windows that overlook public gatherings below. Skateboarders, loitering teenagers, dining businessmen, international tourists, smoking concertgoers (to name a few) - all congregate on the plaza in front of the faceted form, creating a beehive-like effect of activity both inside and out. The building stands on the site of a former trolley yard in a transitional neighborhood between old and new models of the city, connecting the intact historic 19th-century urban core with a new sprawling financial sector toward the Atlantic Ocean by way of a grand avenue (Avenue da Boavista). The new plaza, organically paved in a rusty Jordanian travertine, is an exposed and fluid counterpoint to the rigid angles of the obscure concert hall as it rises up at two corners for entry to both the underground parking and cafe/information kiosk areas. The project becomes an autonomous response, both architecturally and urbanistically, to its charged location and achieves to mediate a fresh relationship between different metropolitan contingents.

236 / 237

“With this concept, issues of symbolism, visibility and access were resolved in one gesture. Through both continuity and contrast, the park on the Rotunda da Boavista, after our intervention, is no longer a mere hinge between the old and the new Porto, but it becomes a positive encounter of two different models of the city.� // Rem Koolhaas, Architect

238 / 239

Metro Station

Site Axon

Av e

nu

e

da

Bo a

vis

ta

Jardim da Boavista

Avenue da Boavista

Jardim da Boavista

240 / 241

?

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Aven ue

da Bo av

ista

Jardim da Boavista

THE OLD CITY

NEW DEVELOPMENT PLANNED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION COMMUTER RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

Following the completion of the Arrábida Bridge (the largest concrete span bridge in the world at the time) in 1963, a new southern entry point over

BOAVISTA URBAN AXIS

the Douro River was established in the city, complementing the historic district’s Dom Luís Bridge to the East. The new road bridge was a product of the recently implemented Municipal Master Plan in 1962 - coordinated

by French architect Robert Auzelle - to establish a new urban center in the Boavista area to the west of the city. The infiltration of new road traffic to the area strengthened an existing concentration of railroad / tram networks that was established in the late 19th century, based on the French urban design model of large radial urban spaces (roundabouts). At the center of the circular space lies a landscaped and monumentalized park with a memorial obelisk at its center - dedicated to the Peninsular War. The

‘Casa da Musica’ Subway Station (Souto de Moura, 2005)

expansion of this infrastructural network has sought to create a western centrality - distinct from the historic ‘Old Town’ to the east - with the area becoming an expansive territory for modern commercial and residential investment (the first shopping center in the city - Brasilia - would open on the Boavista roundabout in 1974) by reason of the economic value of the region near multiple shorelines (Atlantic Ocan and mouth of the Douro River). Today, private initiative has driven the centrality of Boavista (reinforced by the siting of the Casa da Musica in 2005) that extends down an axis toward the sea, enriching the region with private investment while historic parts of the city remain generally dormant.

The Burgos Office Tower (Souto de Moura, 2007) 242 / 243

circulation stair to foyer

circulation corridor

cyber-music room

traditional ‘Portuguese tiles’ in a VIP lounge

traditional three-dimensional tile design

angled structural elements in foyer

Foyer

Cyber Music Room

Large Auditorium // 1,238 seats

Floor Plan

Building Section

244 / 245

Casa da Musica, Top Lounge

While the imposing volume seems rather fastened, the Casa da Musica

ing’s structure, defined by a series of warped spaces and twisting runs of

has an unimpeded relationship between the interior and exterior, with the

stairs that tunnel through the mass, creating key programmatic elements

intention to maximize the link with the public realm through direct visual

that seem to processionally erode from the building’s interior and create

contact - always enticing visitors in relation to their surroundings and offer-

a socially charged set of secondary spaces (press room, restaurant, chil-

ing them a unique view to the city, sea and sky. The dramatic main entry is

dren’s room, electronic room, etc.) that compliment the traditional main

put on full display in the public plaza, fronted by a steep flight of concrete

performance hall. Public circulation is entwined through these interstitial

steps with a theatrical prescience, seemingly discharged from the large

spaces, past soaring angled structural elements, dramatically lit alcoves,

angled sliding glass doors recessed in the large mass, conceding a blurred

and polychromatic interiors - turning the simple act of moving through

position of institutional arrival and public contemplation. The same is true

the building into an transformative kinetic experience that believes in the

for the interior approach that strives to break down the barriers of a typical

‘crush and bustle’ of the audience before the sense of satisfaction during

concert hall to achieve a greater connection between the audience and

the event. The main auditorium is introduced in a different way, suspended

the artist, allowing a succession of open spaces to visually and physically

between two massive parallel walls running the entire length and height of

communicate with the central space (the auditorium) - a notion from the un-

the building, it is a completely soundproof device that is able to be seen

realized design of OMA’s private house that required a series of separate zones around a common family room. The concept would work for Porto as it broke open the traditionally closed ‘shoebox’ music hall, creating an exchange between old and new, public and private - two samplings of different cities.

throughout the building, but not heard. The hall design itself was chosen as a ‘shoebox’ configuration, one that is safe and time-tested, but requires visual association with the city and introduces large glazed openings to each of the end walls - a feature unheard of in performance halls, along with numerous openings for the surrounding secondary spaces that seem

The entire volume of the Casa da Musica operates as a condensed urban

to intrude and hang into the main hall, exposing that blurred programmatic

container with the ability to absorb any amount of programmatic chaos that

break line so common throughout the entire project.

the city offers. The main auditorium lays calmly at the heart of the build-

246 / 247

“Most cultural institutions serve only part of a population.

A majority knows their exterior shape, only a minority knows what happens inside.� // Rem Koolhaas, Architect

248 / 249

QUEEN SOFIA PALACE OF THE ARTS

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VALENCIA

100 m 250 ft

39.4579째 N, 00.3556 째 W

VALENCIA SPAIN

//

City Center 52 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 2,300,000

City Population 809,267

Metropolitan Density xxxx/sq mi

Population Density 16,000/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $25 Billion

Valencia. Spain’s third-largest city has long waned in the shadows of neighboring metropolitan ar-

eas - Madrid (political capital) and Barcelona (economic capital). However, laying on the fertile banks of the Turia River on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula, the city has always been a centralized and sought-after resource with strong maritime connections to the rest of Europe. Like most Spanish cities in the region, Valencia has had a lengthy and transformative past starting as a prosperous Roman colony two millennia ago, leading to Moorish rule in the 8th to 13 centuries, the center of the Christian kingdom of Valencia during the middle ages, the capital of the Republic during the Spanish civil war, and currently the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia. Recently, the city’s maritime culture has grown globally with one of the busiest container ports in Europe and the largest on the Mediterranean Sea, filling the Gulf of Valencia with numerous cargo ships along the eastern edge of the city. But, despite having vast access to the Spanish coastline, the spirit and historic urban core of the city is not necessarily integrated thoroughly with its beaches - like its Catalonian neighbor to the north - with significant urban development of historic Moorish/Gothic/Baroque-accented city districts focused further down the mouth of the Turia River.

Toward the end of the last millennium, the city that was widely overlooked by its larger urban siblings for so long was ready to mature. Perceived economic neglect by the central government (Valencia had the lowest investments in Spain) the city took charge - with increasing worldwide capital gains, cheap available credit and pride in turning a once little-considered place to becoming a cutting edge city - the Valencian government began to invest heavily on large-scale development and urban ‘beautification’ projects throughout the city with ambitions on gaining international interest and establishing itself as the ‘cultural capital’ of Spain. An economy once known for its industries - textiles, ceramics, toys, food, leather goods, etc - was instantly spurred by tourism and construction (accounting for up to 14% of employment in city), leading to a reciprocal expansion of telecommunications and transport infrastructure, with a significant share of capital reinvested in those sectors. Now, a city that hadn’t had a highway to Madrid until 1997, has more miles of high-speed train tracks per capita than anywhere in the world - including a new high-speed rail service linking Madrid (about 200 miles) to Valencia, making it easier for seaside tourists to visit and experience the refurbished city. Major investment would also be made to promote international events - such as the America’s Cup yacht race and the European Gran Prix - that now frequents the city’s Mediterranean shores, bringing international notability to the city that longed-for attention. In the last decade, Valencia had not seen such a building boom like this since the Middle Ages - a time when impressive Gothic structures, such as the medieval church of Miguelete, were constructed throughout Valencia’s urban center - but a faltering world economy would soon transpire, forever changing the city’s ambitious and idealistic urban evolution.

Development Development Area Building Area Audience Capacity

City of Arts and Sciences 3,746,160 sqft 475,000 sqft (xxxx sqft footprint) 3,680 (1,412 Main Hall / 1,490 Auditorium / 400 Chamber Music Hall / 378 Small Theater)

Completion

10.2005

Date

Estimated

$454,000,000

Architects

Santiago Calatrava

Bldg Cost

Users

Valencian Community Orchestra, Queen Sofia Company

254 / 255

TURIA RIVERBED //

From its founding, Valencia has had a dynamic relationship with the Turia River, allowing the city

to thrive as an urban nucleus to a maritime network that would connect the Eastern Iberian Pennisula (from the Montes Universales) to the far-reaching Mediterean Sea. However, the resourceful river would also bring unwanted consequences with numerous flooding events affecting the city through its history, resulting in significant property damage and death. Finally - in the Autumn of 1957 - Valencia would experience ongoing heavy rainfall for days, leading to a catastrophic flood that would forever change the city’s relationship with the Turia River. Nearly three quarters of the city would be overrun by the river’s discharged flood waters - displacing thousands of families from their residences and leaving the city without basic utilities to operate for weeks. Over 80 people would lose their lives following the disaster.

In response to the tragedy, the Spanish government embraced a bold defense plan to prevent another great disaster in the area. The plan, known as “Plan Sur” (South Plan), was an expensive and colossal undertaking that required diverting the Turia River southwards along a new course that skirts the city’s boundary before meeting the Mediterranean Sea, leaving the old riverbed to continue bisecting the city’s historic city center - lifeless and dry.

FInished in 1969, the new channel brought relief to a wary Valencian populace, but left the remnants of the old riverbed up for much political debate. In an effort to alleviate traffic congestion, city leadership envisioned the dry sunken earth as a potential site for an elaborate highway system that could help alleviate traffic in the heart of the city. But residents pushed back and vigorously protested the highway proposal, arguing for more green space in the city that would allow pedestrians and cyclists to pass through much of the city without contact to city roads. A decade later, city officials would succumb to public resistance and approved legislation to ‘sanitize the city’ by turning the old riverbed into a network of sunken landscapes, referred to as the Garden of the Turia.

256 / 257

‘Garden of the Turia’ // sunken park from a former riverbed of the river Turia

258 / 259

MASTER PLAN The newly commissioned five-mile green swath in central Valencia was

built within the western edge of Turia Garden. The glass dome concert

awarded to Catalan architect Ricard Bofill in 1982 to create an initial

hall by architect José María Paredes would take advantage of the gen-

framework for the proposed 450 acre park. The plan divides the riv-

erous green space and become an immensely popular center for musi-

erbed into 18 zones, each free to formalize its own distinct character

cal performances and events, ushering a new cultural renaissance into

by selected local designers, but unified by similar vegetation and water

the city. A few years later, the regional government set out to develop a

features based on Bofill’s neoclassical concepts along a central longitu-

86 acre site at the mouth of the dry riverbed - one of the few remaining

dinal axis. It would be the decision of segmenting the Turia Park into a

undeveloped areas - near the coastal district of Nazaret. The Valencian

sequence of independent gardens that would invite controversy, claim-

architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava, often called the “native son”

ing it impeded the definition of a true global park system - a unifying

of Valencia, would win the commission to develop the entire site. The

element like the river water before it. The extents of each park, with an

original plans called for a large telecommunications tower on the land,

average span of 600 feet from bank to bank, is marked by an existing or

but government leadership desired ‘cultural clout’ that would rival Bilbao

new bridge that transverse the green basin, allowing regulated access

and other Spanish cities. In 1995, the city would begin construction on

points for pedestrians and bicyclists to enter the park while allowing ve-

The City of Arts and Sciences (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias) - a

hicular traffic to cross uncontested. Below, a green matrix of pathways,

scientific and cultural center that would serve the entire community of

manicured gardens and social spaces (playing fields, ponds, service

Valencia and expectantly attract international attention from all over the

areas, playgrounds) flourish as a refuge from the daily urban routine. In

world. The massive complex, often referred to ‘a city within a city’, would

1987, Bofill would complete his own series of formal gardens - accom-

consist of five key linear elements - an opera house, planetarium, sci-

panied by an artificial lake - to compliment the new “Palace of Music”

ence museum, multifunctional space and marine park.

L’Umbracle Landscape Walk

L’Hemisfèric Imax Cinema

Prince Felipe Science Museum

L’Oceanogràfic Marine Park

Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts

L’Hemisfèric Imax Cinema L’Umbracle Landscape Walk

Prince Felipe Science Museum

Assu

t de

l’Or

Brid

ge

The Agora (multifunctional space)

L’Oceanogràfic Marine Park

Site Plan

260 / 261

“The function of arts centers goes far beyond being places for performance ... It is a symbol of the city’s aspirations and a place where people want to meet one another and talk as much as it is a wonderful place to hear music.” // Santiago Calatrava, Architect

262 / 263

PA SE

O

D

E

LA

AL

AM

ED

A

AV E

N

ID

A

PR

O

FE

R

NEW DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED GREEN SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

Built not only to reside as the city’s new scientific and cultural center, Calatrava’s vast and opulent complex manifests a new identity for the historic city center that can not be ignored - both regionally and abroad - creating a heavily transversed urban hub with links to the city’s lower eastern / western banks, an area that had regularly been separated by natural and legislative circumstances. The City of Arts and Sciences responds to traditional nautical Mediterranean culture with a series of diverse pure white ‘fluid’ structures - each with its own concept and aesthetic response - unified by a landscape of pristine light blue reflective pools, a suggestive reference to the ancient river bed and giving a sense to the work as a whole.

GE

ID

SO

R

LO

PE

Z

PI

T

N

ER

O

SU AS

DE

L’O

BR

Assut de l’Or Bridge

Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts

264 / 265

The Sala Principal (Main Hall)

The Auditorium // 1490 seats

Restaurant Los Toros The Sala Principal (Main Hall) // 1412 seats Martin i Soler Theater // 400 seats Maestros’ Hall // 378 seats

Building Section

Building Elevation

//

Ten years after breaking ground on Calatrava’s ‘city within a city’ the last piece in the grand scheme - the 475,000

square-foot opera house (Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts) - reached substantial completion. Rising 246 feet as the world’s tallest opera house, the massive concrete structure spearheads the complex’s main longitudinal axis, perceptibly linking it across a vast site of concrete and reflective pools toward the adjacent Hemispheric Planetarium and Prince Felipe Science Museum. Calatrava’s design for the opera house, as with most of his projects, forms the structure as the compositional protagonist. By recognizing the project’s diverse programmatic commitment, the design unifies the series of irregular volumes through a comprehensive structural enclosure of two symmetrical concrete shells. The center section of the shell’s surface is cut away on both elevations to expose the substantive elements of the building and revealing curves of subsidiary concrete sweeping around the building’s four primary spaces: the main auditorium (Aula Magistral), a large auditorium, playhouse and multipurpose space. The broad tapered exterior shell - clad in the traditional white trencadis (mosaic of shattered tiles) - in conjunction with Valencia’s subtropical climate allows exterior peripheral circulation along stacked horizontal promenade decks to reach distinct sections of the building - all offering panoramic views of Jardin Turia winding through the city’s historic urban center. Today, the Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts sits as Valencia’s largest landmark (both in visitor impact and overall physical size) as well as one of the top visited cultural complexes in Spain. The opera house has become the climactic centerpiece to a creative vision illustrating the ideas of a new public arena with organic arches, curvalinear forms and vast promenade space - reillustrating the gothic cathedral into a contemporary civic structure within a city that has been defined by medieval architecture.

266 / 267

Restaurant Los Toros

The Auditorium Room

CONTROVERSY //

The long-winded planning and construction efforts to rede-

fine Turia’s dry riverbed into Valencia’s ‘City of Arts and Sciences’ did come with its fair share of detractors that claimed the planned complex was too grandiose - a monument only to promote the power of the ruling governing establishment, not for the people. By the end of construction, the entire region was beginning to feel the effects of the world recession. The initial cost estimate for the complex ($410 million dollars) would be revealed to have ballooned to a reputed cost of over $1.6 billion dollars by the completion of the project, with some blaming the cost overruns a contributing factor to Valencia’s economic distress. Even the price of the massive complex’s upkeep is said to be consuming more money than the city can handle. Supporters claim the cost overrides are a result of local officials deciding to expand the project significantly from the original plan.

Along with the City of Culture, other civic ambitions - from a new marina to a theme park during the boom years - have been linked to the Valencia region’s burdening debt totaling close to 20 percent of its total economy - one of the highest proportions in Spain. Now, once an emblem of civic ambition during Spain’s long economic boom, these new civic buildings now have become a symbol of promiscuous spending and government corruption. To make matters worse, the Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts suffered from a number of setbacks during its inaugural year. Ranging from the collapse of the main stage platform that forced to cancel initial performances and reschedule the entire inaugural opera season, to the entire cultural complex suffering from a series of storm flooding that would lead to water infiltration of the lower floors of the building and destroy sensitive electronic and motor equipment, again leading to the rescheduling of the opera season. “The buildings are like symbols of an era when politician thought we were rich”, says Ignacio Blanco, a member of the opposition United Left party.

268 / 269

“The city is a live theatre-stage for its inhabitants, a place for everyone� // Rita Barbera, Mayor of Valencia

270 / 271

ELBE PHILHARMONIC HALL

272 / 273

HAMBURG GERMANY

//

City Center 292 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 5,000,000

City Population 1,802,041

Metropolitan Density XXXX/sq mi

Population Density 6,200/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $117 Billion

By all measures, Hamburg is a water-centric city - historically, geographically, and atmospherically.

Lying on the Elbe River (just 60 miles from the North Sea), Germany’s second largest city has had a long history as a major port and trading center for central Europe - often referred to as the country’s Gateway to the World. The city was first established as a Saxon moat-fortified earthwork ‘Hammaburg’ around 825 AD as protection from the raiding Vikings of the Scandinavian North. Hamburg’s mercantile aspirations would develop five hundred years later, when it assisted in creating (along with the city of Lübeck) a precursor to the powerful Hanseatic League of trading cities - a medieval trade alliance in Northern Europe - that would be the foundation of the city’s wealth and prosperity in the past centuries.

In 1266, England granted Hamburg’s trading bloc to expand mercantile offices in London and made them the only Germans to have a reserved place at the London Stock Exchange, further expanding their trading routes to Western Europe. By the end of the Middle Ages, Hamburg was becoming a major economic power in Northern Europe, developing an independent infrastructure - including its own stock exchange and bank - and continued to grow by broadening its trading connections across the world.

Today, the city boasts the second largest port in Europe (after the Port of Rotterdam), making it one of the richest metropolitan areas in the European Union and Germany’s leading media hub. Thanks to the city’s advantageous location as an international hub of travel - located on the southern point of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, bounded by the North Sea (to the west) and Baltic Sea (to the east) - over 100,000 enterprises from numerous sectors have called Hamburg home - such as logistics, financial, life sciences, aeronautical industry, media and IT. Hamburg’s maritime spirit had dominated its past but is also helping to shape its future, evolving from an old industrial port city to a sophisticated urban maturation - with new waterside developments and contemporary designs that see it detract the spotlight from Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich.

Visitors looking for Old World Europe appeal will not find it it Hamburg. About a quarter the city’s medieval center was virtually destroyed by the 4-day “Great Fire” in 1842, followed by World War II Allied bombing that decimated the remaining historic city. Today’s city center - originally formed by damming the Alster River that created two large artificial lakes - is a mixture of vibrant neighborhoods inundated with multicultural eateries, cosmopolitan commercial areas and affluent retail shops. Historical canals, estuaries and rivers define most of the city, complemented by a reported 2,500 bridges - more than Amsterdam, London and Venice combined. Rebuilding efforts have also made Hamburg the greenest city in Europe with nearly 50% of its surface area marked by landscape features that includes some 1,400 parks and gardens. In 2011, the city was voted the European Green Capital and is used as a case study for other large densely populated urban areas to achieve continued economic growth with smart technologies and environmentally sound concepts. The key industries for Hamburg being on-and-offshore wind energy production and a clean public transportation plan to reduce carbon emissions.

HAMBURG

100 m 250 ft

53.5414째 N, 09.9841째 E

Development Development Area Building Area

HafenCity

Estimated

$790,000,000

23,653,080 sqft

Bldg Cost

667,000 sqft (xxxx sqft footprint)

Architects

Herzog & DeMeuron Hรถhler + Partners

Werner Kallmorge Audience Capacity

2,870 (2,150 Main Concert Hall / 550 Reital Hall/170 Kaistudio);

Users

NDR Symphony Orchestra

250 Room Hotel; 47 Apartments Completion Date

10.2016 (expected)

276 / 277

Norderelbe

Once the busiest maritime port in Europe (still the 2nd largest),

city’s downtown core was in a major need of help - looking for

the harbor of Hamburg was starting to slip in an emerging era

a revigorating urban strategy to combat a continuingly declining

of globalization with EU free trade, massive modern container

inner-city population of just 14,000 residents (peaking around

ships and increased border security. The bountiful southern

170,000 in the 1890s) and the adjacent dockland’s deprecia-

banks across the Elbe River would emerge as successor to

tion became an opportunistic realization. Located less than a

the city’s evolving ship activity, leaving the impractical historic

mile away from the city center, the 388-acre industrial harbor

harbor abandoned by disuse and deterioration. In the mid-

was obtained by the city-state of Hamburg in 1997. Following an

1990s, Hamburg’s municipal government determined that the

urban master-planning competition, both KCAP (Dutch firm) and

HafenCity Masterplan

ASTOC (German firm) would be selected to collaborate on the future of this prime inner-city location. The subsequent development concept, christened ‘HafenCity’ (or Port City), would divide the site into ten districts, each with specifically assigned qualities and limitations. The plan (approved in 2000) allowed for a variety of building types and neighborhoods with the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen circumstances - an innovative approach that allows development officials to ... (cont. pg.104)

278 / 279

19th century Hamburg port area (future site of HafenCity)

MASTER PLAN

Model of HafenCity

Marco Polo Tower by Behnisch Architekten

Der Spiegel Headquarters by Henning Larsen Architects

Neumann Kaffee Gruppe Headquarters Building by Richard Meier

‘Sumatrakontor‘ by Dutch Architect Erick van Egeraat

280 / 281

The Elbphilharmonie // Construction on the western tip of the Hafen-City

The Laeiszhalle // Current home of the NDR Symphony Orchestra

facilitate a cooperative of invested future property owners

brick-built buildings, allowing an easy transition between

/ tenants who procure the design and construction of their

the old and the new city. Directly south of Speicherstadt

own building, attracting local and international architecture

is the neighborhood of Am Sandtorkai / Dalmannkai - the

firms that leads to a diverse, higher-quality form of living

first completed HafenCity district in 2009 - consisting of

and working conditions. Furthermore, mandated site sus-

multi-use developments, a Ship Harbor and a waterfront

tainability requirements ensure quality performance on a

promenade below cantilevered buildings. On the western

site that is known to flood two or three times a year. To pro-

tip of the historic pier - rising from the massive red brick

vide resiliency from the elements, pedestrian promenade

framework of a former cocoa-bean warehouse known as

levels are set 15 feet above water level, while street levels

Kaispeicher - emerges the identifiable singular structure

are set even further up to 25 feet - effectively separating

of the new Elbe Philharmonic Hall (The Elbphilharmonie).

major vehicular and pedestrian traffic throughout the de-

The new construction follows the guidelines of HafenCity’s

velopment.

master plan in creating ‘urban magnets’ - strategically located on the outer-perimeter of the entire development, in-

Currently underway, the evolving $10 billion urban rede-

stead of toward the center, in able to shape the discretely

velopment effort has been projected to take 25-30 years in

independent quarters with specific civic / cultural functions.

implementing all the sub-districts - proceeding from west

As the future home to the NDR Symphony Orchestra, the

to east - with a total of 19.5 million square feet of new

emblematic Elbe Philharmonie vies to become the center-

construction, currently labeled “the largest urban construc-

piece of the new HafenCity neighborhood and give the city

tion initiative ongoing in Europe” and effectively increases

of Hamburg a second concert hall - following the opening

the size of Hamburg’s city center by 40 percent. To the

of the Laeiszhalle in 1908 - with a contemporary design

north of HafenCity lies the historic 19th century warehouse

prescience meant to attract international consideration and

complex of Speicherstadt, a series of renovated clinker

highlight Hamburg’s recent expansion plans.

Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle // Two venues in the city center under one management

282 / 283

284 / 285

Landungsbr端cken Station

DESIGN INTENT //

Fueled by their recent work in urban regeneration, including

escalator diagonally across the entire warehouse to the former roof

the transformation of London’s delinquent Bankside Power Station

of the Kaispecher - now an elevated public square sandwiched be-

into the Tate Modern, Swiss architects Herzog and DeMeuron were

tween the ‘new’ and ‘old’ elements, offering panoramic views of the

selected to assemble Hamburg’s new cultural facility that would

surrounding city at 120 feet and entry to the project’s many ancillary

include (in the spirit of the multi-use development) three concert

areas. Above, the new addition is clad in both curved and textured

halls, a hotel and luxury apartments. The selected base of the new

glass panels (each responding differently to the three main building

design - the historic keel-shaped Kaispecher warehouse - would

components), yielding an iridescent visual appeal with the capac-

provide the designers with distinct advantages that would afford the

ity for natural ventilation.The overall composition from the ground

project with robust structural performance and an exterior brickwork

mimics a wave-like gem that captures and distorts the animated

fenestration that echos the vocabulary of the historical harbor’s

reflections from both the sky and the water - taking advantage of the

streetscapes. Moreover, the design of the monolithic Kaispecher -

projects’ siting from the tip of the old harbor and translating it into

built in 1963 by Werner Kallmorgen - is considered to have survived

an ever-changing appearance. At the core of the ‘crystal’ addition

the ‘test of time’ with a playfully modern, yet unbiased abstraction of

lies an acoustically-reliable concert hall for 2,150 people, hung 160

apertures patterning throughout the entire facade - an ideal plinth

feet above the river between both the hotel and apartment program

for a looming contemporary institution. The new addition - realized

blocks. The interiority of the new structure becomes a symbiotic

as an undulating and multifaceted glass-bodied design - extrudes

relationship between architecture, logics of acoustics and visual

an identical footprint of the warehouse below and ascents to a maxi-

perception - all fundamental ideas that led to an organic tier compo-

mum height of 328 feet to become Hamburg’s tallest structure in the

sition swelling from the boundaries of the concert hall and creating

city center. Ground entry is gained from the east, up an elongated

a phenomenological environment throughout the entire project.

NEW DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION COMMUTER RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

Apartments // 47 units Large Concert Hall // 2150 seats

Hotel // 250 Rooms

Typcial Upper Floor Plan

286 / 287

Apartments // 47 units

Hotel // 250 Rooms

Large Concert Hall // 2150 seats

Small Hall // 550 seats Elevated Public Square

Building Section

Interior model of the Main Hall

//

Glass construction on east facade

Still under development after an expected opening date in 2010, Hamburg’s answer to Sydney’s iconoclastic op-

era house has gone through a turbulent construction process that has seen more visitors than construction workers on site in recent years. The gigantic glass and steel concert hall was originally presented to the city with a modest budget ($248 million) and accelerated schedule to appease voters, but the expansion of scope to include a hotel, luxury apartments and three concert halls would strain the construction schedule and present unprecedented engineering challenges. Recently, with substantial completion of the exterior shell complete, the contractor of the project would halt work due to structural concerns with the project’s steel saddle roof, leading to more delays and rising costs (currently around $790 million). Now, with a new agreement settled, the completion date has been pushed back to 2016. Hamburg isn’t alone in it’s construction woes, as other project in Germany (the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport at $2.7 billion over budget and Stuttgart’s new high-speed railway station at $2.8 billion over budget) have put these massive ‘civic’ projects at a loss with the German public. Some in Hamburg even wonder if the decision to invest so many resources on HafenCity and its new concert hall will benefit only tourists and the city’s elite.

288 / 289

Sandtorhafen (historic harbor) in HafenCity

“It’s what happens whenever you try to build a world wonder that has never been built before, using new materials in new ways ... It’s the same wherever you go — from the pyramids to the Sydney Opera House — it’s very difficult to keep those kind of special projects in tight budgets.” // Christoph Lieben-Suetter, Elbphilharmonie’s artistic director 290 / 291

CULTURE AND CONGRESS CENTER (KKL LUZERN)

292 / 293

LUCERNE

100 m 250 ft

47.0505째 N, 08.3121째 E

LUCERNE SWITZERLAND //

City Center 11.22 sq mi

Metropolitan Population 386,082

City Population 78,093

Metropolitan Density 670/sq mi

Population Density 6,965/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $3.4 Billion

Just an hour south of Zurich by train, Lucerne sprawls along the shores of Lake Lucerne, surrounded by an

imposing Swiss Alpine landscape in north-central Switzerland - most noticeably Mount Pilatus and Rigi. The city’s urban development traces its lineage back to a modest 8th century Benedictine cloister named St. Leodegar monastery. A small fishing village would begin to independentally grow around the monastery and down the Reuss River.

By the 14th century, migration between northern and southern Europe made Lucerne’s location ideal for a bustling trading center. Medieval fortifications began to rise up at the mouth of the river, leading to the iconic angled wood bridges with defensible capabilities across the Reuss River that still define the city today. Upon joining an alliance with neighboring cities in the region - referred to as the “Swiss Confederacy” - Lucerne became a self-sufficient and democratically-held city leading to an era of expansion and infrastructure development.

Today, Lucerne is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the most populous city in Central Switzerland, with major networks in transportation, telecommunications, and government activities for the region, as well as a major destination for international tourism. Other than automobile, excursions in the area of Central Switzerland go through Lucerne’s central train station, bringing in swarms of tourists in search of nostalgic amusement. The city’s main draw - the well-preserved medieval Old Town - is located just north of the Reuss River, still exhibiting original half-timber building, exhausted remnants of old town fortification walls / watch towers scattered from the city to the hillside beyond, and famous historic covered bridges (the oldest in Europe). However, Lucerne doesn’t just dwell on the past, with new progressive developments such as the new cultural and congress center (KKL) on the south bank of the river that delivers fashionable international magnetism to the historic city throughout the entire year, even hosting some of Switzerland’s more acclaimed music events.

The Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke) across the Reuss River

Development Development Area Building Area

Audience Capacity

Bahnhofplatz Area 990,0000 sqft

Completion Date

08.1998

Estimated

$243,400,000

376,737 sqft (121,875 sqft

Bldg Cost

footprint)

Architects

Jean Nouvel Atelier

3,910 (1,840 Concert Hall / 1,800 Lucerna Hall (Multi-Use) / 270 Auditorium)

Users

Luzerner Sinfonieorchester; Lucerne Festival Orchestra

296 / 297

//

In 1856, the city’s first railway station was introduced on

With the completion of the new Lucerne Central Station, built

the edge of Lake Lucerne in order to bring in main line routes

in 1991 by the architectural firm Ammann and Baumann, the

from both German and French railways. The selected site of

city of Lucerne began a crucial modernization of the city quar-

the terminal station was based on unambiguous connectivity

ter known as Bahnhofplatz (Station Square) stretching from

with direct linkages to both the boat service piers on Lake

the new station to Lake Lucerne. The public face of the new

Lucerne and to the city gates of the historic urban center -

project lies in the multi-story concourse with an underground

resulting in the waterfront lake location to develop into an

shopping arcade, designed by the architects then employee,

imposing urban junction for the city of Lucerne. Forty years

Santiago Calatrava, linking the various functions of the city

later, the station would be deemed inadequate - replaced by a

center with the station’s railway platforms. The newly avail-

new terminal building to handle the rapid expansion of trans-

able land between the station and the water’s edge allowed

portation demands by cause of the introduction of nautical

for a potential hub for the local bus system, leading to the

steam navigation and electric rail tracks. This area of Lucerne

landings for passenger ships on the water’s shores. A mas-

would embed itself as the city’s active nucleus - generating

sive new Culture and Congress Center would be proposed di-

a perpetual migration of commuters, merchants and visitors

rectly east of the Central Station, just below the outflow of the

to the city’s urban extents. However, following an intense

Reuss river, and directly next to it, the University of Lucerne’s

fire in 1971, the historic railway station would be left in un-

new main building is planned as a renovation of the former

salvageable ruin - leaving city officials to quickly develop a

post office. Together, these contemporary interventions work

comprehensive redevelopment plan for the station and con-

together to create a refreshingly new city quarter - a reprieve

sider the future development of the entire lake side region.

from the historically imposing city center.

lucerne Masterplan

Lucerne Theater

Re

us

Old s

Town

e Lake Lucern rs tte ee Vierwaldst채

Station Square (Bahnhofplatz) Plaza Europa (Europaplatz)

KKL

Lucerne Central Railway Station University of Lucerne

298 / 299

Auditorium // 270 seats (Convention Center) Lucerna Hall // 1800 seats

Large Concert Hall // 1840 seats

Plaza Europa (Europaplatz)

Floor Plan

Station Square / Bahnhofplatz (top), University of Lucerne adjacent to the KKL (left), waterfront of Lake Lucerne (right)

300 / 301

“This kind of project is most unusual for a relatively small city like Lucerne – not even Paris has a concert hall seating two thousand and boasting such facilities and infrastructure.” // Jean Nouvel, architect

302 / 303

Frohburgstrasse toward Inseli Park

Building Section

DESIGN INTENT //

In 1980, poor structural circumstances with the former Art

of producing a new poroous public expanse between the lake

and Convention Center (designed by Swiss architect Armin

and the KKL called Plaza Europa (Europaplatz), including the

Meili in 1934) would force city officials to shut down the ubiq-

original Meili-designed Wagenbach Fountain that had also ac-

uitous cultural building, leading to the creation of the Concert

companied the former center. However, Nouvel still believed the

Hall Foundation - established to explore options and gain sup-

main element of the project was the prescience of the lake and

port for the city’s future cultural initiative. Nearly a decade later,

if the building could not break the lakeshore, then the lake had

local resident Alice Bucher of Bucher Publishing, would donate

to come to the building. Thus, the ground level of the new com-

a small fortune to the city of Lucerne to launch an architectural

plex is conceptualized as a ‘water garden’ with shallow strips

competition for a new concert hall that would occupy the former

of water invading the interior from the adjacent Europaplatz,

site of Meili’s historic structure. By the following year, French

effectively separating the building into three distinct program-

architects Jean Nouvel and Emmanuel Cattani would be chosen

matic elements - the Concert Hall, Lucerne Hall and Conference

with a dramatic design to project the new center out over the wa-

Center/Museum - all unified under an immensely (130,00 sqft)

ters edge and onto Lake Lucerene - exploiting the site’s natural

monolithic roof that can be identified from across the lake, mark-

advantages while creating an autonomous relationship with its

ing the building in the rich visual Alpine landscape.

influential neighbors. However, the initial design tested the city council’s comfortability with the proposed project - declaring the line of the lakeshore could not be broken - and Swiss architect, Rodolphe Luscher (who placed third in the design competition), was brought in to takeover the design. Two years later, Luscher would abandon the project, leading Nouvel and his team to be invited back with the only condition that the lake remain undisturbed. The new KKL (Kunst Und Kongresshaus) Luzern would complete construction in 2000 - 5 years after breaking ground - leaving the new complex off the lake’s shores by way Postcard illustration of Wagenbach Fountain in front of the former Art and Convention Center, both designed by architect Armin Meili

304 / 305

Shallow canal in the atrium floors

MATERIALITY

306 / 307

“ I travelled to Lucerne and was met by a stunning sight: the expanse of the landscape, of the mountains, of the bridges – I was captivated ... This is an example of framing the landscape. It is a building on an exceptional site, by the lake facing the town. The entire town can be seen from the foyer.” // Jean Nouvel, architect

Plaza Europa (Europaplatz)

308 / 309

NEW DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION COMMUTER RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

LUCERNE CENTRAL STATION

//

The diverse layout of programmatic elements for the KKL is visually

Currently, the city is embarking on another bold cultural endeavour.

framed on the northern facade between its immense cantilevered roof

Driven by the need to further integrate musical theater and opera

(projecting more than 100 feet) and the boundless Plaza Europa - ac-

performance into the successful Lucerne Festival and the desire to

companied by a six-story glass atrium and outdoor terraces - concen-

achieve creative freedom through a variable of staging, spatial design

trate your contextual perception toward the historic city center across

and media technologies; the city of Lucerne has started showing inter-

the river and surrounding landscape. All public access is focused

est in an independent building for a flexible and adaptable opera house

around this point to create a ‘front door’ effect onto the lake. Conversely,

- one based on the state-of-the-art ‘Salle Modulable’ (Adjustable hall)

the service and administrative areas run along an impermeable south-

design. The Lucerne Theater (Stadttheater Luzern) is currently the only

ern edge clad in a verdigris metal mesh, defining a definitive boundary

professional theater in central Switzerland - located down the street

for an entry/dining courtyard from the new University of Lucerne’s Main

from the KKL - however the 1838 structure is overburdened as a ‘three

Building across the street. The lakeside elevations (east and north) are

division house’ (musical theater, theater and dance ensembles) and

composed of multicolored metallic blocks that undulate across the fa-

lacks the space needed to meet the highest international standards for

cade in saturated color tones of blue, red, and green - creating an ex-

an acclaimed opera house. Led by the Salle Modulable foundation and

change between a vibrant landscape and a dynamic interior. Together,

Lucerne Festival leadership, discussions are ongoing to privately fund

this hefty ultra-structure represents a clear and distinctive break with

the project (estimated to cost $180 million) and hope the addition and

tradition - a juxtaposition of contemporary ideas all condensed under

close proximity of the new project can mutually stimulate and innovate

one roof that harmonizes with the horizontal nature of Lake Lucerne.

the cultural partnership of the city.

310 / 311

Europaplatz Waterfront

FLORENCE OPERA HOUSE

312 / 313

FLORENCE ITALY

//

City Center 39.5 sq mi

Metropolitan Population xxxxx

City Population 378,000

Metropolitan Density xxxx/sq mi

Population Density 9,600/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $11.6 Billion

An urban-sized shrine to the Italian Renaissance movement, the city of Florence is famous for its pros-

perous cultural history and nostalgic appeal. Equidistant from Rome (south), Venice (northeast) and Milan (northwest) by just over 150 miles respectively, Florence is firmly established in the heart of Italy’s northcentral Tuscany Region along the shores of the River Arno, famously surrounded by undulating hills covered with historic villas and twisting vineyards. In that centrality Florence would grow from a small Roman military colony (1st century BC) to the center of Medieval European trade and finance - making it one of the richest cities of that time. It was in those riches that affluent mercantile families - including the famous Medici family and politicians began overwhelmingly supporting civil-minded artistic endeavors that would be a testament to the city’s passion for religion, art, power and currency. This would be known as the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. Great historical Florentine artists like da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Dante, Galileo, Donatello, Amerigo and Brunelleschi., just to name a few, would all benefit and contribute to this defining period of time.

To this day, the majority of the city’s monuments, churches and buildings were built during the Renaissance period - including the imposing domed cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore (The Duomo) - with the heart of the city still in the Piazza della Signoria. It is a testament to the honesty in cultural and civic conviction that a small city of merchants and artists without political will or military power rose to a position of enormous influence in such a volatile time in Europe.

Today, Florence (Firenze) is the regional capital of Tuscany and most populous city in the region. The city has remained an important cultural and economic force into modern times. Often referred to as the ‘Athens of the Middle Ages’ , ‘Art Capital of the World’, and the ‘Cradle of the Renaissance’, Florence contains a wide range of art collections from over 80 museums within the city limits - especially from the Pitti Palace and the Uffizi that cover over fifteen centuries of homegrown cultural value. This appeal, along with a strong infrastructural network that connects northern and southern Italy, has shaped the historic city center economically dependent on tourism (the largest industry in the city) and international academic programs, while the peripheral areas around the urban core continues to grow and modernize into a strong industrial / manufacturing district.

Foreign visitation and pedestrian traffic had advanced so much (now over 1.5 million a year) that the city was compelled to close the historic section of the city to vehicular traffic in the 1980s, straining the main highway (Autostrada del Sole) as the primary route to pass west and south of the urban center. Florence seems to be in an ongoing battle for identity - between a booming tourism market aimed to capitalize on the past and the civic pride of the city that does not want to lose its distinctive character and artisan values to trinket shops.

The city has become a victim of its own successes, but still exerts a powerful influence from its artistic and architectural heritage that inspires thousands of students on the Renaissance ideals of empowerment and rediscovery, as it did hundreds of years ago.

FLORENCE

100 m 250 ft

43.7833째 N, 11.2500째 E

Development Development Area Building Area

Audience Capacity

Porta al Prato Region 485,901 sqft

Completion Date

12.2011 (Phase 01)

Estimated

$200,000,000

350,000 sqft (xxxxx sqft

Bldg Cost

footprint)

Architects

Studio ABDR

4,900 (1,800 Great Hall /

Users

The Maggio Musicale

1,100 Auditorium / 2,000 Rooftop Amphitheater)

316 / 317

CONTEXT Historic Ciy Limits Historic City Center Major Public Piazzas New Opera House

Porta al Prato Campo Marte

Santa Maria Novella

Map of Florence

6500

ft

318 / 319

Aerial View of Florence from San Miniato al Monte

320 / 321

//

On the outskirts of the historic center of Florence, the first planned railway network in the city would begin construction in 1841. A

new structure (Leopolda station) - located on a clearing just outside the city walls, near the Pignone ‘industrial district’ and Porta al Prato (named after the 1285 gate to the city center) - was to be a train terminus to the new Leopolda Railway, connecting the Tuscan region between the Port of Livorno and Florence. The construction of the station in 1948 would be the culminating piece to the completed railway - leading to great economic and social benefits to the entire region. However, the activity at Leopolda station would be short-lived, as a new link was opened in 1860 between the Leopolda railway and the much larger and centrally-located Maria Antonia station (now the Santa Maria Novella Station) in Florence. Soon after, the diversion of all region and national traffic would lead to the closing of Leopolda Station, but the structure would remain, undergoing a multitude of programmatic changes through time. Since 1993, the old station’s large interior halls were recognized as a perfect location for an adaptable event / theatrical space, now run by a fashion industry promoter (Pitti Immagine) - establishing a new cultural perspective to this old Florentine industrial district.

By the beginning of the new millenium, an effort was underway for the redevelopment of this stagnant area outside the historic center by the ‘Committee of Ministers for the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy’, aimed at the realization of major infrastructural, cultural and scientific works to reinvigorate the region and celebrate the country. In 2008, an international competition would be initiated for the new ‘Park of Music and Culture’ multipurpose facility, located in the hinge between the historic Leopolda station, Fratelli Rosselli ring road network, Cascine Park and future Porta al Prato regional rail station - aimed at improving the area with a playful combination of cultural and leisure activities, along with the construction of the new head offices of the Florentine Maggio Musicale - all within the vicinity of the current Municipal Theatre (one-quarter mile away). The large complex would be awarded to Roman architects ABDR Associates with a design that represents a link between Cascine’s natural landscape and the stones of the city center, between history and the future.

Porta al Prato regional rail station

The former Leopolda Station

Auditorium // 1100 seats

Great Hall // 1800 seats

Rooftop Amphitheater // 2000 seats

Firenze Porta al Prato Former Leopolda Station

Floor Plan

322 / 323

Northeast edge of site: fence and rail tracks from new Porta al Prato regional station

Building Section

The new site is a transitional point that divides landscape from hardscape, playing a fragile role of integration between a multifaceted boundary of a chronicled city. Along with immediate adjacencies to Leopolda station, the project must contend with Florence’s largest (395 acres) and most popular park - Parco delle Cascine - that invites a natural, porous edge all the way to the Arno River. Adversely, the opposite edge of the site is one that is cut off and impermeable - adored by a large fenced wall and a stretch of tracks - as a result of a new regional railway station built in 2008 that would open adjacent to Leopolda, recycling two rail tracks from the historic station. Primary entry to the site is achieved from the east, along the Viale Fratelli Rosselli - a grand avenue constructed after the elimination of the historic city walls - recently accompanied by the city’s only public light rail line in 2010 with a stop for Parco della Musica.

324 / 325

Vittorio Emanuele II sculpture in Cascine Park

Light rail line through Cascine Park

Viale Fratelli Rosselli Bridge across the Arno River

Tree-lined sidewalk infront of new complex

Undepass of Viale Fratelli Rosselli

326 / 327

The house could well become the focal point of a new Florentine Renaissance in the twenty-first century.� // Francesca Colombo, Maggio Musicale’s Superintendent

PORTA AL PRATO STATION

NEW DEVELOPMENT PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT

SANTA MARIA NOVELLA STATION

ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION COMMUTER RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

DESIGN INTENT //

Built in a city considered the ‘birthplace of opera’, the new Flor-

new structure, along with the pre-existing Leopolda structure and

ence Opera House is designed as a multi-functional complex with

park, form a new urban center devoted to cultural and musical ac-

both an urban and architectural agenda. Shaped by wide open

tiveness.

spaces and a public perception of openness on an urban scale,

By the end of 2011, with construction delayed and out of money,

the new project not only adds to the city’s public spaces with one

the main auditorium in the Florence Opera House would open

of the largest piazzas in the region, but also provides a conceptual

symbolically with performances for the intended 150th anniversary

bridge between the stone-lined city and scenic landscapes of Cas-

of the Italian Republic, only to be subsequently closed. Today, the

cine Park with a series of terraces and outdoor spaces arranged

project is in a funding dilemma - needing a substantial amount of

fluidily along a pedestrian thoroughfare, including the ramped vol-

money to complete the entire complex - with the Tuscan Region,

ume of the main hall with terraced seating on the roof for an open-

city of Florence and national governments all slowly trying to con-

air ‘cavea’ amphitheater space and panoramic views of the entire

tribute during a weakened economic period in hopes of officially

city of Florence. Beyond, the walls of the fly tower are clad in grey

opening in mid-2014. Even with insufficient ongoing performances,

tiles whose identifiable staggering pattern provide an alternating

the site is open - a manufactured landscape to inhabit, stroll and

visual awareness of the project as you move through the site. The

wander - allowing a freedom to experience the potential consum-

complex itself is weighted - a massive, formalistic stone construc-

mation of the intended program - a ‘factory’ for music and enter-

tion - containing two large music halls, administrative center, work-

tainment. Eventually, the city that is making its money on art muse-

shops, rehearsal rooms and accomodations for other activities /

ums and chic shopping will again identify itself as the birthplace of

performances. Together, the imposing architectural clarity of the

opera and emphasizing that as yet another reason to visit.

328 / 329

AUDITORIUM PARCO DELLA MUSICA

330 / 331

ROME

100 m 250 ft

41.9000째 N, 12.5000째 E

ROME ITALY City Center 496 sq mi

//

Metropolitan Population xxxxxxx

City Population 2,777,979

Metropolitan Density xxxx/sq mi

Population Density 5,600/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $160 Billion

Carrying the weight from almost 3,000 years of influential history, the city center of Rome (Roma) still

seduces with a mixture of abounding antiquity, village-like sentiment and stylish metropolitan flavor. Centrally located off the western coast of the Italian peninsula, the city sprawls out of the Tiber River about 15 miles inland from the Tyrrhenian Sea, blending with the adjacent hillsides known as the ‘Seven hills of Rome’. The city’s beginning’s can be traced back to the 9th century BC as a conglomerate of small Latin settlements from the neighboring hilltops, eventually bonding together to become the heart of Italy’s historic urban evolution, from ancient Rome (the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire), and later to the Papal States, Kingdom of Italy and today’s Italian Republic. At the height of power during the period of the Roman Empire, the capital city headed the Western world’s first legitimate superpower - extending from Britain in the north to North Africa in the south - leading to a massive influx of imperial goods and cultures from a myriad of civilizations - condensing the riches of an entire continent into one metropolitan center. Likewise, every leader of the city (from emperors to popes) have left their personal mark on Rome, leading to an urban accumulation of civic/artistic works within the city walls - Triumphal arches, large basilicas, elegant sculptures, ornate palaces, massive sporting venues - all defined the monumental character of the city and formed an ancient urban structure with limited comparison.

Today, often referred to as the ‘Eternal City’, Rome is still an eclectic place - full of of great artistry, diversity and civic activity. The urban core is the memorialized capital of the Lazio region, the center of Roman Catholicism, and the political capital of the entire Italian Republic, shaping it as the most populated and transient of modern Italian cities. Central Rome is geographically divided into several municipalities - with the reasonably unscathed historical center (the Forum, Colosseum) at its core - in order to decentralize the government’s administrative duties and districtize the city’s many historical urban milestones. Lying 6 miles equidistantly from the city’s geographic center of Capitoline Hill, a massive orbital highway (GRA) encompasses Rome’s abundant city districts and brings clarity to a web of historic boulevards and small access roads - most remnants from the Roman Empire when ‘all roads lead to Rome’ - with the final sections of the sixty-year highway project completed in 2011. As with many post-WWII Italian cities, Rome was struggling with constraints to build new facilities for a growing population, while also preserving the country’s substantial natural beauty and ancient remains. However, the construction of the GRA, along with a new underground metro system, would help alleviate a city plagued with perennial housing shortages and critical traffic congestion, with an influx of new residential buildings (albeit hastily and unsightly constructions) clustering around the orbital road in Rome’s freshly-anointed suburbs - an explosion of new growth outside the ancient core. Rome is now ringed by a thick band of residential and commercial developments - a modern equivalent to the old city walls - keeping a delicate balance between the museum-like city center and contemporary urban living.

Development Development Area Building Area

Flaminio District

Estimated

$102,000,000

6,299,400 sqft

Bldg Cost

885,590 sqft (322,917 sqft

Architects

Renzo Piano Building

footprint) Audience Capacity

7,750 (2,800 Symphony Hall / 1,200 Auditorium / 750 Flexible Hall / 3,000 Open Air)

Completion Date

12.2002

Users

Workshop

Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

334 / 335

FLAMINIO DISTRICT

Tib er

Riv

er

Villa Glori

5

3

2

4

1

Historic Ciy Limits Historic City Center New Music Complex Previous Accademia locations

Map of Rome

1. Piazza del Popolo

2. MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts

3. Stadio Flaminio

4. Palazzetto Dello Sport

336 / 337

5. The Hanging Park surrouding Auditorium Parco Della Musica

The Roman Forum

338 / 339

//

The pursuit for a prominent musical complex to showcase

character as a cultural, entertainment and sporting locality for the

Rome’s famed National Academy of St Cecilia (Accademia Na-

city. Following the announcement of the Rome Olympic Games

tionale di Santa Cecilia) has been an ambitious undertaking - one

for 1960, Flaminio would enter a new phase of urban transforma-

that has lasted over 65 years of competitions, postponements

tion as the selected site for the new games - with construction

and uncertainty. In 1936, the historic auditorium (the Augusteo)

of the Olympic village, Olympic Stadium, and the Sports Palace

- and home to the 425+ year-old institution’s Symphony Orches-

(along with the previously-built Flaminio Stadium) a catalyst for

tra - would be dismantled to recover the ruins of the Emperor

change in post-war Rome that is still omnipresent today.

Augustus Mausoleum buried beneath. In the years that followed, the National Academy of St Cecilia was forced to rent existing

In the ongoing effort to alleviate Rome’s lack of adequate venues

structures throughout the city center as it pressed the municipal

for classical music, the Rome City Council decided to host an

administration for available urban space to construct a new con-

invited international design competition in 1993 for a new music

cert venue. A 1950 design competition considered the expansive

complex. However, such a desired large complex would not be

and available Flaminio district of Rome as a new home for the

feasible in the very dense historical center of Rome near the Ac-

Academy, only to result in an indeterminate recommendation

cademia’s prior venues. Therefore, the competition site would be

from the jury - putting the project in a state of uncertainty for

positioned in northern Rome, on a spacious former parking lot

years, though highlighting Flaminio as an ideal and practical lo-

site in the Flaminio district - bundled between the former Olympic

cation for future development.

structures. The Olympic Village extends northward of the site, Pier Luigi Nervi’s ‘Sports Palace’ (Palazzetto della Sport) to the

The Flaminio district, located north of the city’s historical center in

west, and the Flaminio soccer stadium to the south-west. The fol-

the curve of the Tiber River, is named after the ancient road of Via

lowing year, Italian architect Renzo Piano and the Renzo Piano

Flaminia that leads from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to

Workshop were named the winners of the competition with a

the Adriatic Sea - a major trade route in the Roman Empire. Ex-

scheme that offered a modern concept of landscape urbanism

cluding the Flaminia road, the flood-prone area outside the Aure-

to weave the scattered fragments of the Flaminio district. With

lian walls was largely untouched until the end of the 19th century

the completion of the new Auditorium project, Rome’s Flaminio

when industrial enterprises overran the region. With the industrial

district would again go through another chapter in urban develop-

implant established, a period of settlement expansion would oc-

ment - one that requalifies the region as a contemporary neigh-

cur with an increase of building complexes and road networks. In

borhood focused on the arts and sports - further emphasized by

1911, city officials selected the Flaminio district to host Rome’s

the recent completions of the MAXXI (Museum of XXI Century

International Exhibition of Art in celebration of the 50th anniversa-

Arts) by Zaha Hadid in 2010 and the Ponte della Musica (Bridge

ry of the Unification of Italy - initially defining the area’s ubiquitous

of Music) by Kit Powell-Williams and Buro Happold in 2011.

Auditorium // 750 seats

Library, Administration, Shops, Restaurant, etc.

The ‘Cavea’ open-air Auditorium // 1,200 seats

Remains of Roman Villa

Auditorium // 2,800 seats

Floor Plan

340 / 341

Ancient Roman villa unearthed during construction

Ruins preserved within the Parco della Musica complex.

VILLA GLORI

PALAZZETO DELLO SPORT

NEW DEVELOPMENT

NO

IZIA LE T VIA

STADIO FLAMINIO

PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED PUBLIC SPACES AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION METRO RAIL BICYCLE HIRE / DOCKING

DESIGN INTENT //

The project, later named the Auditorium Parco della Musica (Park

cultural elements - arranged by size and elevated around the amphi-

of Music), is conceived as an open multi-functional complex to host a

theaters concave stepped seating - that unifies the project’s composi-

variety of musical performances on a decentralized site that benefits

tion, while the subterranean foyer below directly links the perimeter of

from a transportation infrastructure inherited from the 1960 Olympic

the outdoor amphitheater to the Auditorium. The main entrance of the

Games. Not simply a performance hall, but a complete urban condi-

complex from Viale de Coubertin projects a glass-covered arcade with

tion for music: with three concert halls, large rehearsal and recording

access to the site’s popular public commercial activities (restaurant and

rooms, workrooms, a museum of musical instruments, a comprehen-

shops), while the more intimate park area - complete with playgrounds

sive music library, retail shops, gardens, exhibition spaces, offices, bars

and grass fields - radiates beyond the halls as a quiet buffer between

and restaurants - all radiating around an active open-air amphitheater

the complex and the city beyond.

or ‘Cavea’. Acknowledging activity adds an additional layer to the proj-

When the project began excavation in 1995, work was immediately

ect - allowing urban participation therefore gives an urban sense of the

halted with the discovery of ancient ruins from a large farmhouse vil-

complex - enriched by cultural nodes (concert halls) that are separated

la dating from an archaic era (6th century BC - 3rd century AD) - not

and submerged in the Parco della Musicas landscape, which rolls down

an uncommon occurrence in Rome - consisting of different residential

from the neighboring Villa Glori. Each one of the three concert halls is

rooms around a central courtyard. The discovery of the archaeological

understood as an individualistic element, architecturally and functionally

remains delayed construction for a year and triggered a modification in

separated to facilitate soundproofing and coinciding performances, but

the design with an adjustment to the building layout for integration of a

aesthetically tied by identical zinc-shrouded roofs (a material resembling

museum for the Roman remains found on the site - proving the project’s

the historic lead domes of Rome). It is the placement of these sculpted

fluidity and adaptability early in the construction process.

342 / 343

“Activities add an additional dimension to the project: to give an urban sense to an area that needs urban participation. Culural locations, just like musical ones, have the natural ability of enriching the urban texture, stop the city’s barbarization and give back that extraordinary quality that has always had in history.” // Renzo Piano, architect

The ‘Cavea’ open-air theater, named ‘Largo Luciano Berio’

Risonanze Area

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The Foyer with Maurizio Nannucci neon installations

Inaugurated in December 2002, the Auditorium Parco della Musica has been considered a healing element in Flaminio’s pocketed urban tissue and Rome’s arts scene. The multi-dimensional complex accommodates the diverse programmatic needs of the city - designed for symphonic concerts, ballets, contemporary music, opera, baroque music, and theater - with potential to significantly expand its range of activities to include different art and performances in support of the Music for Rome Foundation (a joint partnership between the City of Rome, Chamber of Commerce, the province of Rome and the Lazio Region). Recent urban growth, cultural production and historical connotation come together with this new complex to alleviate the urban fracture that was once a neglected parking lot. The whole area can now be considered a new park open to the meandering public - a synthetic and functional continuation of a landscape that stretches between the banks of the River Tiber and the nearby Villa Glori - redefining the Flaminio district as an integral part in Rome’s contemporary aspirations.

Building Section

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“ When cities expand there are always black, untidy holes that then need to be filled in. This is the real gamble of the next thirty years: how to transform the edges of the city of those areas over-looked by urban development. One of the ways of upgrading this emptiness is to create places that bring people together or fill them with collective functions.� // Renzo Piano, architect

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BOSTON

Boston is the biggest small city in America as the ‘capital city’ of the New England area, Boston boasts the fifth largest Metropolitan area in the nation and a density equal to Metropolitan London.

BOSTON USA City Center 496 sq mi

//

Metropolitan Population xxxxxxx

City Population 2,777,979

Metropolitan Density xxxx/sq mi

Population Density 5,600/sq mi

Metropolitan GDP $160 Billion

With successful intergration, the conceptualization of urban arts institutions have become crucial in redefining our cities as

a natural source for contemporary thinking - enticing new capital investment and inquisitive residents / tourists - and a primary indicator of the city’s aspirations that speaks wholeheartedly to young and empowering talent in a new global economy. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Boston would experience an unprecedented amount of new cultural construction and philanthropy along the Huntington Avenue thoroughfare - a broad expanse of freshly-repleted land from the marshy wetlands of the city’s Back Bay (1858-1890) - that would introduce such notable buildings as the Boston Public Library (1895), Horticultural Hall (1901), the New England Conservatory of Music (1901), Chickering Hall (1901), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (1903), Jordan Hall (1904), Mother Church Extension (1906), the Boston Opera House (1909), and the Museum of Fine Arts (1909). Notably, this manufactured virgin land was an especially highly-desired site for the relocation of the valued Boston Symphony Orchestra from the congested urban fabric of the city’s original peninsula - leaving the Boston Music Hall (Orpheum Theatre) to become the first cultural institution to secure a position in the Fenway area with the new Boston Symphony Hall (1900). This immediate injection of extensive cultural activity - all within a decade of time - brought an opulent style of architecture that had rarely been seen in Boston, neverless the urgency of construction would create an ill-defined and inflexible cultural district along a mile stretch of Huntington Avenue with no collateral space to compliment the merit of their designs. Years later, at the point of Boston’s ‘urban reinvention’ in the 1960s, the Boston Opera House and Chickering Hall (among others) would be torn down from Huntington’s architectural cultural row, replaced by growing academic influences and the new 14-acre Christian Science Plaza - following other large-scale urban interventions throughout the city, such as the West End clearing (1960), Prudential Center (1964), Copley Square (1966), and City Hall Plaza (1968) - all defining Boston’s current urban landscape. In 1998, the city of Boston would acknowledge Huntington Avenue’s prominent position in defining the city’s cultural vitality by designating the section between Massachusetts and Longwood Avenues as the “Avenue of the Arts” with Symphony Hall anchoring this distinction as the earliest and most prominent structure serving the area.

Since the great wave of construction along Huntington Avenue, Boston has not seen significant civic investment in the construction of a centralized cultural center with emphasis on the performing arts. Adding the new ICA building (2002) - constructed as a catalyst for the redevelopment of the city’s old industrial waterfront (Fan Pier) - along with the additions to both the Museum of Fine Arts (2010) and the Gardner Museum (2011) have been welcome developments to the city’s cultural life. However, Boston - so rich in prominent art institutions and talent - has fallen behind other American cities, such as New York, Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles (to name a few), in recent years with the lack of a flexible, state-of-the-art performance facility that can both engage and invigorate the city. The question: Does a city like Boston need such a building? Recently, the Opera Boston announced it would be ceasing operations after 8 years in the Cutler Majestic Theatre, leading some to wonder if such a performance art was appealing in New England. Some would argue the recessed economy and inadequate facilities would bring on the demise - leading me to wonder if the Boston Symphony Orchestra would have survived if it had never moved to its prominent Fenway site. Regardless, it can be seen the need to reconnect, rather than preserve, Boston’s great performance halls within the urban fabric so that these highly regarded institutions may translate their programmatic successes into engaging civic moments, while also considering a new facility that can cure what Boston Globe’s Jeremy Eichler calls Boston’s “void in the cultural life of a city so rich in other dimensions”.

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AMERICAN COUNTERPARTS Creation of the Public Realm for Civic Engagement

Symphony Hall Boston, MA (1900)

0

Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles, CA (2003)

66% PRIVATE 34% PUBLIC

Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA (2006)

38% PRIVATE 62% PUBLIC

44% PRIVATE 56% PUBLIC

32% PRIVATE 68% PUBLIC New World Center Miami, FL (2011)

200 ft

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Philadelphia, PA (2001)

43% PRIVATE 57% PUBLIC

Guthrie Theater Minneapolis, MN (2006)

Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts Kansas City, MO (2011)

19% PRIVATE 81% PUBLIC 11% PRIVATE 89% PUBLIC

Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre Dallas, TX (2009)

Lincoln Center New York City, NY (1966, 2012)

18% PRIVATE 82% PUBLIC

42% PRIVATE 58% PUBLIC 354 / 355

1 SYMPHONY HALL REDEFINING A BOSTON CULTURAL ICON

HUNTINGTON AVE.

Boston Public Library

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The Boston Symphony Hall is located on a dramatically tight urban

site defined primarily by the congested intersection of Massachusetts Ave and Huntington Ave (both major traffic thoroughfares in the city) that constrains the Hall’s potential in engaging the public as a civic institution. This proposal explores how Symphony Hall can dramatically expand its urban boundaries and compliment its world-renowned program. A new civic square is conceived west of the Hall - taking over part of St Stephen Street to allow for pedestrian activity and movement that leads to an elevated plaza over the congested intersection. New

Prudential Center

program is added south of the Hall for new office and recital halls for easier access and availability of daylight - replacing existing program located underground.

Symphony Hall Extension ( 394,025 SF )

Christian Science Center

MA

SS

AC

HU

SE

TT

SA VE

Chickering Hall

.

(Demolished 1963)

Mother Church Extension

Horticultural Hall Symphony Hall

Elevated Plaza ( 50,000 SF )

BU Theatre

New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall

Symphony Square ( 27,300 SF ) Boston Opera House (Demolished 1958)

Gardner Museum

Museum of Fine Arts ss

Ma ac tts

se

hu e

Av

100 m 250 ft

Existing Conditions

HU

NT

IN

G

AVE

TO

N

AV E

SS MA Christian Science Plaza

NEW Elevated Plaza BSO Marketing Building NEW Symphony Square

NEW Symphony Hall Extension

Symphony Hall

Symphony Plaza Housing

Proposed Site Plan 0

200 ft

Perspective of Proposal // Huntington Ave. 356 / 357

2 INNOVATION DISTRICT REDEFINING A BOSTON CULTURAL ICON Surface Parking Areas

100 m 250 ft

//

The new 23-acre Seaport Square - a $3 billion development master-

plan in South Boston with 6.3 million sf of new mixed-use space - is one of the largest single projects in the city’s history. Since the 1970s, a vast amount of the area has been used for parking - seeing little to no development until 2006, when the Institute of Contemporary Art opened along the waterfront. For almost a decade, the ICA (the first new museum built in Boston in nearly a hundred years) was buried by surrounding parking lots and security fences. Now, construction is moving forward with Boston’s emerging district - making it an ideal location for a centrally-located performance hall located on 85,000 sf parcel designed as a porous public plaza that can compliment the existing masterplan and connect the waterfront ICA to a much larger urban gesture.

Proposed Master Plan

Institute of Contemporary Art

NEW Performing Arts Center and 85,000sf Public Plaza

100 m 250 ft

Se

ap

ort

Blv

d

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Axon of Proposed Intervention along Seaport Blvd.

3 GOVERNMENT CENTER REDEFINING A BOSTON CULTURAL ICON //

As one of Boston’s most controversial public

spaces, CIty Hall Plaza - accompanied by widelypublicized Boston City Hall - has been notably condemned by critics for it’s lifeless and vast Brutalist New Performing Arts Space ( 350,000 SF )

attitude of material expressionism (primarily red brick and concrete). The addition of a new performance-based arts center (350,000 sf) on City Hall Plaza, placed just north of City Hall, would help define and soften the ill-sited plaza with more active edges - providing both retail and cultural program to the area. The new center would benefit from the location of the site - at the heart of the government and commercial districts , as well as a popular tourist area. Publically-accessible space would be

Elevated Public Plaza ( 60,000 SF ) Retail ( 25,000 SF )

retained throughout the project as elevated plazas (60,000 sf), scaled-down for smaller functions and city viewpoints.

City Hall Plaza ( 100,000 SF )

31,000 SF

100 ft 50 m

T

Superimposing footprint of Boston Symphony Hall on City Hall Plaza

Perspective of Proposal // City Hall Plaza 360 / 361

The democratization of space “adds an additional dimension to a project: to give an urban sense to an area that needs urban participation. Cultural locations, notably musical ones, have the natural ability of enriching the urban texture, stop the city’s barbarization and give back that extraordinary quality that it has always had in history.”

Renzo Piano

‘Untitled’ // Duane Haley (1924)

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