ARCHITECTURE

House of Music in Aalborg

Denmark’s City of Aalborg just got richer for yet another architectural gem, courtesy of Austria’s Coop Himmelb(l)au. Situated on the edge of the Limfjord, The 20,257 square meters House of Music represents a part of the firm’s wider master plan for the evolving area. The CEO of Coop Himmelb(l)au and the genius behind the project, Wolf D. Prix envisioned a building that would stimulate the dynamics and the synergy of the creative process. And this one truly does.

The House of Music combines cultural and educational facilities, and as Prix explains, “the school embraces the concert hall”: positioned in an U-shape, the educational spaces (classrooms, rehearsal areas) are wrapped around the concert hall, and connected with a vertical foyer. This organization of space, as well as hundreds of circular and pea-shaped windows, allows natural sunlight into the building. Also, with the concert hall positioned as the building’s core, the musician’s ceaseless purpose of sharing music through performance receives a superb architectural homage.

Contrasting the building’s boxy exteriors, comes the center-stage area: the concert hall with its unforgettable curvy shape. Effective fusion of crispy white and crimson red strikes at first glance, but it’s the fluid, bent walls and curved balconies that take the crown. The hall also features superior acoustic concept, developed with the help of Tateo Nakajima at Arup. With noise reduction level of NR10, House of Music’s concert hall is one of the quietest areas for symphonic music in Europe.

July 21, 2014