Architecture

A shoe box. This is the shape traditionally adopted for the concert halls of the world, regardless of the efforts of architects who have been racking their brains to find different designs for these structures. Nevertheless, in doing so they always come across the same obstacle: the fact that the shoe box design is the only one that guarantees the optimum acoustics required for this type of construction.

This was the dilemma facing Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas in 1999, when his practice - Office for Metropolitan Architecture, better known as OMA – was chosen by Portugal’s Ministry of Culture to design a concert hall for the country’s second city of Porto, to mark its selection as European Capital of Culture for the year 2001.

Even though Koolhaas and his team stubbornly attacked the task of finding ways of breaking free from the traditional architectural approach to this type of challenge – after all, OMA and its founder are well known for their philosophy of designing structures incorporating irreverent approaches to the use of shapes and materials – the realities facing them soon lead to a tempering of their enthusiasm. However, Rem Koolhaas is not a man who allows him to be beaten by the need to adopt conventional ideas, so once he had accepted the requirement to adopt the shoe box design for his concert hall, he also decided to incorporate unique architectural elements that would make it stand apart from any other concert hall anywhere in the world.

This is how the building that is now known as Porto’s Casa de la Música came into being, the first concert hall in the world not designed solely for the benefit of the people who go there to attend concerts, but also for the enjoyment of those who see it from the outside.

Its design grabs your attention as soon as you enter the Rotunda da Boavista, the part of the city where the concert hall was built, located between Porto’s historic center and a working class area, and which was traditionally used as a parking lot for out of service street cars. As a result its architecture is quite traditional and conservative. Against this background, the Casa de la Música, with its pioneering design, towering white concrete structure and expansive glass walls immediately catches the eye.

Precision molded concrete is the building’s main element, including the two main auditoria; the first can accommodate up to 1,238 concert goers, 110 musicians and a 143 strong choir. It is located in the tallest part of the building from where its other areas can be appreciated. Designed in the form of a gigantic rectangle, it is flanked by two glass walls (one forming a backdrop to the performers and the other located behind the audience), providing panoramic views over the city and the surrounding ocean.

You may ask yourself, how it is possible for a musical auditorium to have glass walls, when it is a well known fact that this material disperses sound randomly. The answer to this question lies in Rem Koolhaas’s ingenuity and in his decision to produce such a provocative design even for the interior of such an apparently conventional structure.

He broke with the traditional approach by building the walls out of corrugated glass incorporating clearly defined “pleats”, and by placing two additional thicknesses of glass one meter behind the main walls in order to provide an acoustic barrier to isolate the interior from external noise. This approach also adds to the aesthetic beauty of the space, as it allows natural light to enter and ensures that those inside the building can enjoy views of the building’s surroundings, while passersby can also watch the artists’ performances on the stage.

The second auditorium is smaller, accommodating an audience of up to 300 seated and 650 standing. However, it incorporates the flexibility of being able to change the location of the stage and the seating, accommodating audiences of different sizes as necessary. If the most remarkable aspect of the main auditorium is the use of glass, pride of place in the second auditorium goes to the tiles that adorn its extensive walls. On one of the walls they are used to depict religious scenes, as is the practice in Portuguese churches. The other wall is covered in geometric shapes.

The building also incorporates an external terrace, a 250 seat restaurant, a recording studio reserved for the Casa de la Música’s three resident orchestras (the Porto National Orchestra, the Remix Ensemble and the Casa da Música Baroque Orchestra) together with rehearsal rooms and dressing rooms both for orchestra members and guest performers. These spaces are connected by a combination of conventional staircases, escalators and platforms, which conduct visitors not only through a world of music and the arts but also on an architectural adventure. Nicolai Ouroussoff, The New York Times architecture critic went as far as to describe Portugal’s Casa de la Música as one of the most important concert halls built in the last 100 years, on a par with the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Berlin Philharmonic auditorium.

The Casa de la Música in summary
Construction commenced: 1999.
Completed: 2005.
Investment: 100 million Euros.
Area: 22,000 square meters.
Prizes won: The 2007 Royal Institute of British Architects European Award.
More information: www.casadamusica.com