Casa da Musica

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Project Name: Casa da Musica
Construction year: 2005
Website: www.casadamusica.com
Address: Av. da Boavista, 604-610, 4149-071 , PORTO - Portugal

Architect(s) : OMA (www.oma.eu)
Project Category: Cultural

Latitude: 41.1586
Longitude: -8.63103

Casa da Musica

“This building is insane. It is also brilliant.”
Hugh Pearman of The Sunday Times, London, 10th April 2005.

Built in 2005 by Rem Koolhaas' OMA in the city of Porto, Portugal the Casa da Música is, without a doubt, a significant architectural statement — further emphasised by its intense angles and towering presence. “Defined both visually and spatially by its faceted exterior, the Casa da Musica invigorates the traditional concert hall with its daring interior forms and innovative use of materials. Wave-like corrugated glass is used in both the 1300 seat grand auditorium and its smaller 350 seat counterpart. Material transparency allows for each space to reveal its contents to the city; making visible an array of performances and cultural events.”

Urbanism

Since the historical center of Porto was still a city ‘intact’, OMA chose not to articulate the new concert hall as a segment of a small scale circular wall around the Rotunda da Boavista but to create a solitary building standing on the new, more intimate square connected to the historical park of the Rotunda da Boavista and enclosed by three urban blocks. With this concept, issues of symbolism, visibility and access were resolved in one gesture.

"Through both continuity and contrast, the park on the Rotunda da Boavista, after our intervention, is no longer a mere hinge between the old and the new Porto, but it becomes a positive encounter of two different models of the city."

Architectural concept

Most cultural institutions serve only part of a population. A majority knows their exterior shape, only a minority knows what happens inside. OMA addressed the relationship between the Concert Hall and the public inside as well as outside the building by considering the building as a solid mass from which were eliminated the two shoe-box-shaped concert halls and all other public program creating a hollowed out block. The building reveals its contents to the city without being didactic; at the same time the city is exposed to the public inside in a way that has never happened before.

The ‘remaining spaces’ between the exposed public functions consist of secondary serving spaces such as foyers, a restaurant, terraces, technical spaces and vertical transport.
A continuous public route connects all public functions and ‘remaining spaces’ located around the Grand Auditorium by means of stairs, platforms and escalators: the building becomes an architectural adventure. The loop creates the possibility to use the building for festivals with simultaneous performances; the House of Music.

The building provides a large amount of rehearsal rooms, soloist rooms and dressing rooms to house the Porto Philharmonic Orchestra and to provide in addition facilities to external and guest performers.

During the Design Phase OMA researched new materials and new applications of existing and Portuguese materials exclusively for Casa da Musica such as; the concrete mix for the external facades, the corrugated glass for the windows of the Auditoria, the used tiles for different rooms and the chairs, canopy and wall finish in the Grand Auditorium.

The Structure

'Casa da Musica' is visually and spatially defined by its striking faceted exterior from which its conventional interior spaces have been extracted. The buildings 400mm thick faceted shell and the two 1m thick walls of the main auditorium are the buildings primary load carrying and stability system. The auditorium walls act as internal diaphragms tying the shell together in the longitudinal direction.

Contributed by ArchiTeam