Elbphilharmonie

About this place

The Elbphilharmonie, completed in 2017 by Herzog & de Meuron, has become the symbol of contemporary Hamburg. The architects set a shimmering, wave-topped glass structure directly on top of the Kaispeicher A, a robust 1960s brick warehouse on the tip of HafenCity surrounded by the Elbe on three sides. The seam between old brick base and new glass crown is marked by the ‘Plaza’, a public viewing level reached by a long curved escalator, open to anyone and offering a panorama of the harbour and city. Above the plaza rises the Grand Hall, a 2,100-seat auditorium arranged as a steep ‘vineyard’ of terraces wrapping entirely around the stage, its surfaces clad in some ten thousand individually milled gypsum-fibre panels — the ‘white skin’ — tuned acoustically by Yasuhisa Toyota. The curving glass façade panels, each printed and partly bulged, catch the changing light of sky and water so the building never looks the same twice. Long delayed and famously over budget, it has nonetheless earned its place among the defining concert buildings of its era.