Stockholm Concert HallStockholm
Concert HallStockholm
Concert Hall
One of the most important public buildings of 1920s Swedish Classicism is the iconic Stockholm Concert Hall. The competition entry for the extension and renovation aimed both to improve the acoustic performance of the main auditorium and to add a new performance space. A public restaurant and a number of new functional spaces for the orchestra, which are currently insufficient, were also included, as well as rehearsal rooms, the green room, offices and new spaces for visiting orchestras.
Observing the building’s place in its urban setting shows that each of the four characteristic blue stucco façades is important in the streetscape, while its roof has no significant impact. This supports the idea of avoiding an additional extension that would connect the concert hall to neighbouring buildings, thereby affecting and altering the present street space. Instead, the scheme proposes an addition to the roof of the existing building, maintaining the concert hall’s character as a freestanding and solitary monument within its dense historical context of layered urban development.
Ivar Tengbom, the architect of the concert hall, described the ceiling of the main auditorium as a kind of heavenly light – an idea that could now be fully realised by providing a space under a glass roof open to the sky. The new stage and restaurant will also enjoy magnificent views of downtown Stockholm from a position hitherto inaccessible to the public: the hidden attic space of the concert hall.
