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The Elbphilharmonie, a concert hall in Hamburg encased in glass and set upon a giant brick warehouse, is surrounded on three sides by the waters of the city’s bustling harbor. Designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog and de Meuron, the building cost about $850 million, took more than a decade to design and build, and was for a long time cited as a joke — a dark joke — among Germans who fretted that the project had become an albatross: unbuildable, over budget, and wildly out of proportion to what the sensible people of this mercantile city wanted or needed.
But the building, one of several projects around the world that aim self-consciously for “iconic” status and have price tags in the billion-dollar range, opened to international acclaim on Jan. 11. The acoustics, designed by the renowned Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, are a marvel of clarity, precision and cool objectivity. Visitors enjoy stunning views of the industrial grit of Hamburg, renewing the city’s relation to the source of its wealth and its cultural window on the larger world. Tourists flock to ascend the Elphie’s long escalator, rising through the old warehouse in a tunnel of white glass and plaster to visit the rooftop terrace, which bustles with activity before and long after evening concerts. If you want to attend a concert, good luck, because almost everything is sold out.
[...] Why this building? What about its design, its location and the implicit social messages embedded in its architecture have made it so successful? Carsten Brosda, a senator in Hamburg’s state government and head of its cultural authority, says location is a primary factor in its success. “I was never a fan of iconic buildings because so many of them are rather generic,” he says. But Elbphilharmonie is exceptional, located in the geographical heart of the city, on a site that demanded some exceptional public use. “There were architects saying this is on the verge of being unbuildable, but that is what makes it unique.”
The care taken with the acoustics are another factor. Toyota doesn’t try to replicate the sumptuous warmth of 19th-century concert halls. Rather, he aims for a live- performance sound adapted to the digital age, which reinforces pleasures lost to an era of cheap headphones and limited-range MP3 files. There is no golden aura, but there is fantastic clarity and spatial presence. Part of that success, at the Elbphilharmonie, may be attributable to what people here call the “white skin,” an interior surface of 10,000 unique gypsum-fiber panels that help diffuse sound.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:21PM (5 children)
The place only seats 2,100. Assume it is able to extract $50/seat above costs to operate / maintain the venue and pay an orchestra. By my math, on performance number 8,095 it will break even on the construction cost. This is rich and powerful people sucking up other people's money for big expensive toys that as a general rule only they are interested in. Yall know my leanings, it has to be pretty bad for me to be saying this is the rich stealing from the poor.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:08PM
Yuuup: the poor subsidizing the rich.
The interior (where the rich will be) looks nice, but the poor only see the BUTT FUCKING UGLY exterior.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:11PM
Some people with lots of money will probably rent the place for special events, and help improve the bottom line.
2100 is the main room, but there has to be a few other ones.
At least, there is public transportation to get people in and out and in and out of the penis-shaped pier...
(See also the Channel Islands Harbor [google.com] for another great example of phallic port)
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:13AM
Well, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] (and Wikipedia's sources) tells me that this building has three concert venues (a 2100-seat hall, a 550-seat hall, and a 170-seat hall for educational activities).
It also has a hotel currently rented by Westin with 244 rooms. It has 45 luxury apartments. It houses conference rooms, restaurants, bars, and a spa, along with a parking garage.
Still sounds like a pricey building, but care to re-do the math with all of that taken into account?
Also, the point of such "landmarks" is often to create a tourist destination (think Sydney opera house). Hamburg's tourism industry has been on the upswing in the past couple decades. If this provides another reason for tourists to visit, it could add more to the local economy than the revenue from the building itself. B
(Score: 2, Disagree) by idiot_king on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:36AM (1 child)
Piggybacking on what jmorris said, this is really poorly spent money in general. This is typical bourgeoisie money-flashing and not an actual cultural touchstone nor accomplishment.
They could have spent that money providing social programs badly needed for all the refugees from Syria they've let in and failed to give jobs or places to stay.
But, leave it to the Capitalists to misunderstand basic human needs.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:03AM
HAHAHAH! Oh hahaha ... HAHAHAHAHAH ... oh ... man, my sides hurt ...
Next, you'll tell us all about how prestige projects in distinctly non-capitalist, and even anti-capitalist societies were totally different, you guys! Totally different.
And maybe you want to explain how all those capitalists - the specific ones who specifically laid out the specific cash for that specific building, in fact - totally had to flip a coin, on one side of which was BUILDING, and on the other side of which was REFUGEES - and they were just too gosh-darn stupid to figure it out? And nobody else could have done the refugee thing in parallel because reasons?
Just to spell it out for you:
a) Their money, I don't give a damn how they spend it in Germany. Fancy buildings, feeding refugees, hookers and blow. Don't care.
b) I strongly suspect that many of the people there have limited caring for the refugees, are very suspicious of the motives and provenance of the refugees, and would rather spend the money to get the refugees in Germany, out of Germany. Whether this is right, wrong, insane or purple largely depends on your personal moral code which (I'm guessing here) is wildly at variance with theirs.
c) The track record of non-capitalists on the caring front is ... how can I put this politely? Mixed? Spotty? Variable? Somewhere between stony and diabolical? And if you, personally, feel so personally driven to personally ensure that every Syrian refugee, or claimant to refugee status (valid or no) has a warm bed to sleep in, four square meals a day and fulfilling occupations, I invite you to tell us all about it. Don't spare the pixels! We want every dirty detail. Because if you aren't giving them your money and time and effort? I respect that, but less charitably disposed people might start to wonder whether there may not be a tinge of hypocrisy to your position.
But I'm sure there's a great explanation for it all. Long form answers, please. Detailed and specific.