188 Concert Hall, European Month of Music

Project: 2000-2001
Construction: 2001

Two concert halls were designed and constructed as a temporary location for New Music – right in the middle of Hall 5 of the Basel Trade Fair. Several works a day by contemporary composers could be heard throughout November, performed by some of the most renowned ensembles and orchestras in Europe. Contemporary artistic creation peaked at an international level slap bang in the middle of Kleinbasel – almost non-stop around the clock! The doors of the Paul Sacher-Halle were open during the day as well, to see rehearsals, workshops and other opportunities to communicate music. And of course the hall was intended as a meeting point for musicians, music-lovers and those who wanted to become aficionados.

The concert-hall was a magical creation, built of light – its function was to conjure an atmosphere in which the audience was attuned to the coming concert, to transport them to another world in the minutes preceding the first note and to focus all concentration at precisely the right moment and to the exclusion of all else onto the musicians. And then to sound good.

The other part of the Paul Sacher-Halle remained one unbroken space. Several layers of coloured, semi-transparent curtains separated the bar and the foyer from the “salle modulable” – this part of the hall and the materials employed in it were designed for performances of electronic music. The configuration of musicians and audience changed with each event. All in all, a place where contemporary music and architecture combined to strengthen each other, in which maybe some visitors discovered this music as a constant companion to their future lives. And that was the goal of the European Month of Music, to bring New Music closer to us, during November 2001.

Herzog & de Meuron, 2001

Drawings

Team

Partners: Jacques Herzog; Pierre de Meuron; Christine Binswanger
Project Team: Jürgen Johner (Associate, Project Architect); Diana Garay (Project Architect); Matthieu Brutsaert; Peter Taylor

Facts

Client: European Month of Music
Planning: Architect Planning: Herzog & de Meuron, Basel, Switzerland; Construction Management: Stahl – & Traumfabrik, Zurich, Switzerland; HVAC Engineering: Waldhauser Haustechnik, Münchenstein, Switzerland; General Contractor: Stahl – & Traumfabrik, Zurich, Switzerland
Specialist / Consulting: Acoustics Consulting: BBM Müller, Munich, Germany
Building Data: Gross floor area (GFA): 40'902 sqft, 3'800 sqm

Bibliography

“Herzog & de Meuron. Natural History.” Edited by: Philip Ursprung. Exh. Cat. “Herzog & de Meuron. Archaeology of the Mind.” Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. 23 October 2002 – 6 April 2003. 2nd ed. Baden, Lars Müller, 2005.

Fernando Márquez Cecilia, Richard Levene (Eds.): “El Croquis. Herzog & de Meuron 1998-2002. La Naturaleza del Artificio. The Nature of Artifice.” Vol. No. 109/110, Madrid, El Croquis, 2002.