Built on the boundary between the capitals banlieues and its affluent boulevards, the new

state-of-the-art concert hall aims for social transformation through the arts. We take a peek
and ask what makes the perfect concert hall
Gillian Moore
Friday 12 December 2014 12.00GMT

he first purpose-built public concert hall in Europe, Oxfords Holywell Music Room, is
a compact, elegant space which seats just 200 people and hosts intimate concerts and
student recitals. Prior to its first opening, in1748, classical music had been
performed in churches, royal courts and artistocratic houses. But theemerging
middle classes needed something more: they were making music at home but wanted to
hear it inpublic spaces, to meet like-minded people and to put their cultural tastes on show.
Societies of music lovers sprang up in major cities with the purpose of setting up orchestras
and building concert halls. In 1813, the newly formed Royal Philharmonic Society of London
commissioned thearchitect John Nash to renovate theArgyll Rooms opposite what is
nowtheApple Store on Regent Street, London, and created a concert hall. Similar societies
in Leipzig, Vienna andLiverpool were responsible for thebuilding of new halls for music. As
the industrial revolution progressed, the concert halls got bigger, with venues such as
Birminghams Greek temple-style town hall of 1834 and steel tycoon Andrew Carnegies
famous 1891 concert hall in New York, becoming symbols of civic pride and industrial new
money.
More recently, concert halls have been conceived with broader social purposes in mind. The
Royal Festival Hall was built as part of the Festival ofBritain to raise spirits after the war;
Birminghams 1991 Symphony Hall was seen as crucial to the regeneration of an
economically depressed city and Sage Gateshead opened in 2004, providing a world-class
concert hall and a focal point for community music and education in the north-east of
England. The latest concert hall project with far-reaching social ambitions is the
Philharmonie de Paris, which will open next month on the eastern edge of the French
capital.
The Philharmonie is a huge, organic structure rising up in the Parc de la Villette, the arts and
science park built just inside the boulevard priphrique on the site of the old Paris meat
market and abattoirs. It is the latest and, sadly, possibly the last major manifestation of the
energy and willpower of Pierre Boulez, composer, conductor and the godfather of music in
France. For more than half a century, Boulez has used his influence to get concert halls built,
ensembles founded and music research centres established. At 89, he is now inpoor health,
but his spirit is everywhere throughout this project. The neighbouring Cit de la Musique
(which will come under the management of the Philharmonie and will be renamed
Philharmonie 2) opened in 1995 and realised Boulezs dream for a flexible concert hall fit for
the 21st century: wired for electronic sound, capable of changing shape and layout to

accommodate contemporary works such as his own spatial masterpiece, Repons, and
incorporating a museum and education spaces. But, with 900 seats, the Cit was too small
for big symphony orchestras, and Boulez wassoon planning a bigger version.
Its construction has sparked controversy over the location and, especially, the escalating
costs to the city of Paris and the French government. Priced at an estimated 381m
(303m), it will rank among the most expensive concert halls in the world. And even before
its opening, the Philharmonies artistic lineup isattracting complaints both of elitism and of
dumbing down.
But the venue is a glamorous architectural statement, designed by French star architect Jean
Nouvel, whose credits include the Muse du Quai Branly and the Institut du Monde Arabe in
Paris as well as concert halls inLucerne and Copenhagen. From adistance, it looks like a
great, geological mound, as if some seismic event had created a mountain. Move nearer and
you can see its external walls, billowing like folds of cloth. From yet another angle, the
building looks like a huge bird that has landed on the park - and Nouvel continues the avian
theme by cladding many of the outside surfaces, underfoot and on walls, with200,000 tiles
in the shape of flying birds in what must be 50 shades of grey aluminium.
But most classical music lovers will tell you that its the inside of a concert hall that counts:
the great halls are the ones with great acoustics. Its all highly subjective, but the top three
acoustics are generally agreed to be the Musikverein in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in
Amsterdam and Symphony Hall in Boston. All three were built during the second half of the
19th century, the first building boom for purpose built concert halls when cities saw them as
a source of civic pride. In those days, acoustics was still one of the dark arts rather than a
precise science, but these halls have in common the shoebox shape, a long rectangle in
which the performers are positioned at one end and where straight, high walls reflect and
blend the sound.
By the mid 20th century, architects believed that the formal, hierarchical layouts of these
concert halls were outdated, reflecting the social order of their times. In the ruins of postwar
Berlin, Hans Scharoun built the Berlin Philharmonie (opened in 1963) to reflect a more
democratic ideal, a new society in Scharouns words: the performers are in the centre and
the audience encircle them in sloping terraces, an arrangement that came to be known
asthe vineyard model. Scharoun employed the latest acoustic science to ensure that the
Berlin hall sounds as glorious as it looks, and its vineyard design became the inspiration for
many new halls around the world: from Disney Hall in LA to Manchesters Bridgewater Hall,
Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the long delayed and still unopened Elbphilharmonie in
Hamburg.
Simon Rattle insisted on the 19th-century shoebox shape for Symphony Hall in
Birmingham, built in 1990 whenhe was in charge of the City ofBirmingham Symphony
Orchestra. ThePhilharmonie de Paris has the bestof both worlds. The basic design
isvineyard, but some very sexy technology means that banks of seating can disappear into
walls to create a shoebox, or a standing venue for rock and pop concerts. As with the
Philharmonie in Berlin, the acoustic is enhanced by floating clouds, wooden acoustic
reflectors that control the sound in the space. And there is an ingenious solution to one of
the key tensions in concert hall design: the need for a large volume of space for the sound to
resonate, while allowing the audience to be close to the action. The Philharmonies banks of
seating are nested inside the much larger shell ofthe hall, floating free of its walls, making
for an intimate experience in alarge space: no audience member will be more than 32

metres away from the performers, says chief executive Laurent Bayle, but the room is
large enough to be very resonant.
But the new building must fulfil a social as well as a musical function, and when visiting I
am reminded that the priphrique is more than a traffic artery. It is a social barrier: on one
side, the Haussmann boulevards and creamy beige limestone of the ancient centre of Paris,
home to cultural institutions and wealthy urbanites; on the other, the banlieues, the edgier,
poorer, multicultural suburbs French politicians are trying to bridge this divide with a vision
of Grand Paris, an integrated city with more equality of opportunity. The new tramline
that weaves its way in and out of the suburbs and has a stop outside the new concert hall is
symbolic of this ambition, and so, too, is the Philharmonie de Paris.
The views from the roof terrace, 37 metres above street level whether of the Sacr Coeur
and central Paris to the west, or of the suburbs and the hills to the east offer a reminder of
Bayles desire to embrace new horizons. This is a new vision for a concert hall and one of
the most important things about it is the location. Classical music has been concentrated in
the west of the city, which is wealthy; the Salle Pleyel, Radio France [which has itself just
opened a new concert hall], the Thtre des Champs Elyses. From this place, we can reach
out to a whole new audience we can unite the suburbs and the city centre its Grand
Paris, he says. The East wall of the building quite literally does reach out to the suburbs: a
giant, digital screen will project images and words across the Peripherique towards the
banlieu of Pantin.
In the brochure for the opening season, Bayle opposes the idea that classical music should
be linked to social class. He wants to break down the barriers, shake up the ritual of the
concert, prioritise education programmes for young people and make links between musical
genres. To do all this, he will have at his disposal a2,200-seat concert hall, rehearsal rooms
with public galleries, extensive workshop spaces which can take school groups and staff
who can look after children while parents attend a concert. There will also be a gallery
space, whose first exhibition will be the V&As David Bowie show, aswell as cafes and
restaurants.
But what of the music? It will be amore diverse mix than is usual in French musical
institutions. Classical will dominate, with the Orchestre de Paris and Ensemble
InterContemporain in residence, and it will provide a Paris venue for visiting European
orchestras such as the LSO, the Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Berlin
Philharmonic, as well as the New York Philharmonic, the Simn Bolvar Orchestra of
Venezuela or the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. But weekends will also be themed on topics
such as New York, Bowie, science fiction, the human voice, amateur music and love stories,
exploring ideas across all genres of music in concerts, workshops and talks.
If all this seems familiar to British audiences already au fait with eclectic programming of
Southbank Centre, the Barbican, Sage Gateshead, Birmingham or Glasgow Concert Halls, it
represents a radical step in France, where classical culture has enjoyed far higher state
support and its importance has gone largely unchallenged. Last month, a study from the
University of Limoges found that the average age of classical concertgoers in France has
risen from36 in 1981 to 61 today: Bayles desire to shake things upis timely.
Glamorous design, great acoustics and a classy programme guarantee thatthe Philharmonie
de Paris will be amajor new landmark in Paris and a great asset to the international
community of musicians and music lovers who will enjoy its gleaming new spaces. But its

ambitions are greater than that. It is aiming for nothing less than social transformation
through the arts.
Gillian Moore is head of classical music at Londons Southbank Centre. See
philharmoniedeparis.fr for details of the Philharmonies opening season.
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