With a festive musical programme, the new Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre, Harpa, was officially inaugurated in August 2011. The opening took place in connection with the annual jazz and cultural festival of Reykjavik, and the Concert Hall hosted numerous concerts throughout the day.
Harpa is designed by Henning Larsen Architects in collaboration with Batteriið Architects. The spectacular south facade was developed in collaboration with the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.
Inspired by the geological basalt stone formations along the Icelandic coast, the south facade rises up 33 metres. The facade is made up of a breathtaking three-dimensional structure of steel and glass. On Saturday night, the facade lighting was revealed to the thousands of people present.
The remaining two-dimensional facades and roof build on the geometry of the south facade as a cut through the three-dimensional shape.
The glass captures the light of the sun and colours of the sky and appears as a giant, illuminating sculpture, reflecting the sky and harbour and the vibrant city life. Made up of more than 12,000 m2 glass; the building changes colours depending on the weather and time of day and year.
Art and architecture are beautifully united in the 28,000 m2 Concert Hall. The arrival area and foyer are situated in the front part of the building, the four music and conference halls in the centre and the backstage area with offices, administration, rehearsal and dressing rooms in the rear end of the building. Artec Acoustic Consultants is behind the acoustic design, which has already received great reviews in connection with the many opening concerts during the summer.
Harpa – Reykjavik Concert Hall and Concert Centre forms part of an extensive development plan for the east harbour in Reykjavik – with the objective of bringing the city and harbour closer together. Thus, the building will become a landmark in the area and at the same time a symbol of the economic recovery of Iceland. Henning Larsen Architects won the assignment in an international competition in 2005.
Background
The competition for the master plan and design of Reykjavik’s new concert hall and conference centre was launched in 2004 as a so-called PPP – Public Private Partnership – competition.
Due to the complex form of competition, no more than four teams were able to tender for the project – among these, the newly established cooperative Portus Group consisting of Henning Larsen Architects, Batteríið Architects, Olafur Eliasson, the engineering companies Rambøll, Hönnun and Hnit, Landsafl hf., IPC Iceland Prime Contractors, the operating company Nýsir hf. and the investor Landsbankinn.
The other teams participating in the competition were represented by schmidt hammer lassen from Denmark, Norman Foster from England and Jean Nouvel from France. Portus Group was selected as winner of the competition in 2005.
Description
The 28,000 m2 Concert Hall is situated in a solitary spot with a clear view of the enormous sea and mountains surrounding Reykjavik. The arrival area and foyer are situated in the front part of the building, the four music and conference halls in the centre and the backstage area with offices, administration, rehearsal and dressing rooms in the rear end of the building.
The three large halls are placed next to each other with public access from the south side and backstage access from the north. The fourth floor is a multifunctional hall with room for more intimate shows and banquets. Seen from the foyer, the halls form a mountain-like massif that forms a stark contrast to the expressive, open facade. The largest hall of the building, the main concert hall, is situated at the core of the massif.
Harpa – Reykjavik Concert Hall and Concert Centre forms part of an extensive development of the east harbour area in Reykjavik, starting four years ago. Henning Larsen Architects is behind the master plan and Concert Hall.
Facade
Harpa’s multifaceted glass façades are the result of a unique collaboration between renowned artist Olafur Eliasson and Henning Larsen Architects. The design is based on a geometric principle, realized in two and three dimensions. Inspired by the crystallised basalt columns commonly found in Iceland, the southern facades create kaleidoscopic reflections of the city and the striking surrounding landscape.
Made of a twelve-sided space-filler of glass and steel called the ’quasi brick’, the building appears as a kaleidoscopic play of colours, reflected in the more than 1000 quasi bricks composing the southern facade. The remaining facades and the roof are made of sectional representationsb of this geometric system, resulting in two-dimensional flat facades of five and six-sided structural frames.
Light and transparency are key elements of the building. The crystalline structure, created by the geometric figures of the facade, captures and reflects the light – promoting the dialogue between the building, city and surrounding landscape. One of the main ideas has been to ‘dematerialise’ the building as a static entity and let it respond to the surrounding colours – the city lights, ocean and glow of the sky.
In this way, the expression of the facade changes according to the visual angle. With the continuously changing scenery, the building will appear in an endless variation of colours. The building will not appear as a frozen setting but rather as an active, dynamic figure reflecting the weather, sun, city and changing parts of the day and the year.
As the sun accentuates the details in light and shadow, the building will allude to the warm golden colours of glowing lava or to the ice blue glaciers of winter, providing the spectator with a sensuous feeling of nature’s continuous change. At night, strips of red, green and blue LED lights integrated in the bricks illuminate the facades.
Conceptually developed by Olafur Eliasson, the colour and light intensity of each brick can be individually controlled, thereby generating the full colour spectrum. In the foyer, kaleidoscopic shadows are projected onto the walls and floor, creating an almost crystalline space.
Photo credit: Nic Lehoux
