Schlucht Halle

Advanced Design Studio Critic: Frank Gehry w/ Trattie Davies This new concert hall design and building for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is sited in an up and coming development in East Munich. The building is spread out like a campus, addressing not only the inner programmatic characteristics of the Orchestra and Academy, but also the vibrant and multi-use surroundings of the site. The primary focus for the project was developing the main concert hall and evoking a feeling when one enters. In this case, the curves and colour splashes of the Antelope Canyon in Arizona became the main inspiration for the hall, along with the texture and quality of musculature and icebergs. The combination of these inspirations result in a striking and grand space for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to share their music to the world.

BRSO Campus
The Bavarian RadioSymphony Orchestra Music Campus celebrates the BRSO and the new Hall (SchluchtHalle), Music Education (scholarship and study of music) and the Community (the urbandevelopment surrounding the site). The experience of the building is like moving among amini campus that has focus on these three things. The primary driverfor the design is centered around the interaction of the orchestra and the main hall andthe music academy associated with the orchestra. Each programmatic element on thecampus exhibits a unique personality and quality that together contribute to the larger bodyof the BRSO. Inspired by the free-flow and loose conceptual diagram of Cedric Price’s FunPalace, the spaces between these characters become significant in its interstitial spaceand the way the characters are connected. 
 
Looking at thebeyond the given site at the larger context of Munich, the current city center consists ofbuildings built from the ground up after 1945. The buildings are rooted inhistory but also a facadefor what used to stand there. On the other hand, the site for the BRSO’s new building is justoutside one of Munich’s major train stations, Ostbahnhof. The land has roots as a Potato farm andproduct manufacturing. The new development involves new mixed-use residential and workbuildings among clusters of existing unique program such as Potato farm silo turned RockClimbing hub, Hamburger wholesale, night clubs and small concert venues. The cluster ofvaried program works well with the Fun Palace spirit of the project, and serves as a complementarysite for the BRSO Campus.
 
Ground Floor Building Plan
Upper Level Floor Plan
Building Long Section
Schlucht Halle
 
The design of thehall began with a contextual study of organs and muscles. The feeling of the hall evolved toadapt the natural formations of canyons, in particular, Antelope Canyon and The Wave, both inArizona. While the building is made up of spread out individual programs that pull away fromthe hall, the feeling inside the hall pulls inward instead. This feeling is represented assweeping forms that come out from the walls and form the bays for seating. The vibrantexplosion of colour as inspired by Antelope Canyon is brought into the hall as well, emphasizedthrough the seating fabric to further evoke the feeling of the canyon. The ceiling of the hallalso adapts the sweeping forms, except in more individualized textured ‘sheets’ thatoverlap and form the convex bowl shape for acoustic reasons.
 
Iterative process through physical models and sketches
1/16" study models
1/8" model before walls and occupancy, highlighting the weaving coloured bays and walls (cast concrete)
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