fire safety rather than ventilation), ingeniously assembled by the German firm Joseph Gartner, famous for helping to create the shimmering exteriors of MoMA in New York and BMW World in Munich.


Ten there was the shaping and acoustic tuning of the concert halls. H&dM wanted them to emulate the close connection between audience and performers that they have achieved in sports stadiums in Munich and Beijing, or that are achieved via the tiered balconies of La Scala in Milan, as well as the central stage position established to universal acclaim by Hans Scharoun’s pioneering 1963 Berlin Philharmonie. But the unusual resulting structures they devised required unique acoustic responses: for the Grand Hall of 2,100 seats, walls are coated in an extraordinary, dimpled ‘white skin’ of gypsum fibre, which reflects sound in several directions, each tile digitally modeled to exact specifications by


legendary acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota; and the smaller, 572-seater Recital Hall, likewise, is coated in a rippling, crafted and contoured skin of French oak designed to give each seat the optimal listening experience. With all of the excitement for visitors and audiences on top of the original warehouse, how do you get them up there? Tere are lifts, of course. However, H&dM envisaged a magical journey through that warehouse block, culminating in the same riverfront vista that used to be enjoyed through the windows of the warehouse canteen. But it is an 80m rise to reach that point from the entrance, and we humans apparently will not step onto escalators that long, so they decided the escalator should be curving, with a ‘false summit’ two-thirds of the way up. Te visitor gently ascends through an escalator tunnel of glossy white glass discs embedded in combed concrete, a shimmering, inverted snowscape with shades of Yayoi


Kusama, to be deposited, slack-jawed, at that panoramic view. Curving escalators are very expensive. But it works: it is a delight, an adventure, part of the magic of moving through this building. But how hard this building works to deliver these delights. It is almost as if it is working against nature – or against structure or gravity – and certainly against rational thinking. And that is where it falters, as a gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) for me. Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera house, by contrast – for all that its battles to be built and funded are comparable – is experienced as 90% inspiration compared with 10% perspiration. Te Elbphilharmonie feels more 60/40 overall. But was it worth it? Te public spaces are mostly glorious interior landscapes, especially in daylight. By night the glittering darkness of the city and riverscape wraps around this translucent skin, and its remarkable outline and texture, set against the river, has helped to


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