Hamburg Hall Opens

The Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall opened in Hamburg, Germany, Jan. 11 with a concert by the hall’s resident orchestra conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock.

Christian Charisius / DPA via AP – Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
Kent Nagano conducts the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg and the choir of the Hamburg State Opera at the Great Hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, Jan. 13.

The controversial venue’s acoustics were designed by Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, who also designed the acoustics for the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Bard College Performing Arts Center in New York, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, and dozens of others throughout the world.

For the Elbphilharmonie, Toyota installed about 10,000 “individually microshaped drywall plates” to disperse the sound.