Gasteig Munich Philarmonic

Our proposal for this large cultural insitution  has been to reconnect the Gasteig with the city of Munich. This has been achieved in several ways. Functionally, by attempting to bring life to the western part of Rosenheimer Strasse, open to the street, and creating a great terrace that will attract the people to visit it and stay. Visually, this terrace is open to the river, to the view over Munich and to the Alps on a clear day. By opening up and clearing this area from interruptions, this terrace, also open and connected to the great lobby and foyer, will be full of activity.  The existing Hall has  poor acoustics: arriving at this innovative solution has involved a highly collaborative design process between Architect and Acoustician.  In our opinion, this collaboration is essential when designing an innovative concert hall that doesn’t involve the traditional rectangular ‘shoebox’ shape. The first modification to the main room involves transforming one fan shape room into two rectangular shoeboxes. This involves extending the central ‘side walls’ to form a ‘v’ or ‘ships bow’ in the centre of the room.

The second main room modification is the introduction of the ‘inner grid/framework’. This grid has two functions; firstly it creates an inner and outer volume both visually and acoustically.  Secondly it provides opportunities for a number of excellent lateral reflections into key areas.  This grid/framework consists of a pattern of lateral reflector panels (some in groups) with large open areas between the panels to allow the sound to reach the outer volume.