Salle de Concert

Within just three years, upcoming Luxembourg city district Kirchberg has been provided with a newly built concert hall, one in which music and architecture are able to coexist in perfect harmony. Designed by Parisian star architect Christian de Portzamparc, the new Luxembourg Philharmonic—la Salle de Concert Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte—constitutes the centrepiece of the Place de l’Europe. The supporting architectural and building supervisory work was entrusted to the Luxembourg partnership Christian Bauer et Associés. Originally, the building was to be provided with a circle of high trees, a “Space of Initiation” through which the public would be required to pass as they make their approach. “Once on site, however, I realised that we didn’t have enough room to carry out the planting,“ explains Portzamparc. Instead, he decided to install a ring of 823 round-section steel columns, each measuring roughly 30 centimetres in diameter. These slender uprights are radially arranged one behind the other in several rows in keeping with a mathematical, if not musical, cadence.

The sweeping elliptical design of the building provides an effective contrast to the strict symmetry of the triangular Place de l’Europe, redesigned by Catalan Ricardo Bofill in 1996 along the lines of Italy’s Renaissance piazzas. At the heart of the approx. 25 metre high construction is the rectangular Grand Auditorium with 1,500 seats, a structure that exudes both magnitude and intimacy in equal measure. The stage, with its capacity for 120 musicians, is located between the box “towers”. These are several storeys high and arranged along the longitudinal sides of the auditorium—“like buildings of the night surrounding a public square,” is how Portzamparc describes the scene.

Prominent Features

Here, as in the smaller halls, in the spacious foyer and in the other rooms, shapes, lighting arrangements and subtle signage combine to create a certain intrinsic regularity of rhythm. This is also reflected in the architectural details of the interior. The various door control systems from DORMA coordinate perfectly within this sophisticated, all-encompassing concept. The emergency exit devices selected by the offices of Christian Bauer, for example, take the form of discreet, frame-concealed DORMA TV 500 electromagnetic door-locking devices. And for the Philharmonic restaurant,planned for completion around mid-2006, the DORMA ES 90 automatic sliding door system offers the ideal solution— for this powerful yet virtually silent operator can be thoroughly relied upon not to detract from any of the sensual experiences enjoyed by the patrons.