snøhetta blends building and landscape for beethoven concert hall competition

snøhetta blends building and landscape for beethoven concert hall competition
all images courtesy of beethoven festspielhaus

the competition to design a concert hall dedicated to beethoven in bonn, germany, resulted in ten diverse and formally complex entires from an impressive array of international offices. oslo and new york-based snøhetta partook, presenting a ‘festspielhaus‘ facility representative of their values on the design of the built environment. namely the scheme fuses building and landscape together, while offering multiple publicly accessible areas to create an open cultural institution.

for other contest schemes featured by designboom, including the shortlisted entries still being considered and more info on the future concert hall’s development, see here.

a long ramp accesses a publicly open rooftop terrace, physically linking the building and surrounding landscape

the structure is composed of large glass façades and robust forms of marble-aggregate concrete. the building physically links to the surrounding topography with a long outdoor ramp, which accesses a publicly open rooftop terrace. the primary volume is rotated 45 degrees with respect to the rhine river and adjacent beethovenhalle, which creates open plaza spaces between the foyer and the surrounding context.

the hall is arranged with a ‘shoebox’ layout

by incorporating various public spaces with the discrete functionality of the concert hall, the festspielhaus offers increased offering as a multi-use cultural building. the design team of snøhetta describe that the, ‘structure and surroundings flow into one another, creating a landscape that invites play and intimates a diverse range of uses.’

the primary building volume is rotated 45 degrees with respect to the rhine river and adjacent beethovenhalle