In tune

Scenography of Space is a series of short films – created by the global creative agency PLANE–SITE – that explores the architectural concepts behind four progressive concert halls: Harpa in Reykjavik, the National Forum of Music in Wrocław, and the Philharmonie de Paris.
 
All three projects transcend the concert hall’s rarefied status as a fusty institution. Rather, their architects have all set out with more holistic goals, creating multifunction spaces that seek to inspire a wider audience rather than simply the cloistered classical music community. The approach taken by Henning Larsen Architects with Harpa – a geometric glass hall in the Icelandic capital – is neatly summed up by Edward Arenius, an acoustics and theatre director at Arup. The hall, he explains, is based on ‘the materiality of Iceland’, purposefully referencing its landscape. This sensitivity to its surroundings, he surmises, makes the hall an inherently communal building. It’s an inclusive approach that is mirrored in the other two case studies.

Music: Featherlight by Lee Rosevere