Casa da Música

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Outside view

Casa da Música is a major concert hall space in Porto, Portugal which houses the cultural institution of the same name with its three orchestras Orchestra Nacional do Porto, Orchestra Barroca and Remix Ensemble. It was designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas with Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Arup-AFA, and was built as part of Porto's project for European Culture Capital in 2001 but was only finished in the first half of 2005 and immediately became an icon in the city. The Building engineers were Ove Arup - London together with Afassociados, Oporto.

Although the opening day concert took place on the April 14 with Clã and Lou Reed, the building was inaugurated on April 15, 2005 by the Portuguese president. The Prime-minister and many other notable politicians and Porto society were present for the concert by the Orquestra Nacional do Porto.

1 Construction
2 Critical reactions
3 Performance and other facilities
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Construction

Interior view

Casa da Musica on opening day

Casa da Música was built just across from one of the main traffic and business centers of the city, Praça Mouzinho de Albuquerque , known as Rotunda da Boavista. The place where the building now sits used to be a holding place for the electric cars that ran in Porto. Although construction ran over four years over schedule and cost roughly €100M, the building process brought new engineering challenges in order to create its unusual configuration.

[edit] Critical reactions

The building's design has been highly acclaimed worldwide. Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic from the New York Times, classified it as the "most attractive project the architect Rem Koolhaas has ever built" and saying it's "a building whose intellectual ardor is matched by its sensual beauty". He also compares it to the "exuberant design" in Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. "Only looking into the original aspect of the building, this is one of the most important concert halls built in the last 100 years". He compares it to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, in Los Angeles, and the Berliner Philharmonie.^[1]

[edit] Performance and other facilities

Casa da Música has two main auditoriums, though many other areas of the building can very easily be adapted for concerts and other musical activity (workshops, educational activities, etc.).

The large auditorium has an initial capacity of 1,238 people, but can vary according to the occasion.
The small auditorium is tremendously flexible, and has no definite number in relation to the capacity. On average the room has capacity for 300 people sitting down, and 650 people standing, though these can drastically change depending on the size of the stage, its location, the arrangement of the chairs, the presence and size of sound and recording equipment, etc.
The restaurant at the top of the building was opened far later than was originally planned. Functioning since August 2006, the restaurant's original planned capacity for 250 people was decreased to space for some 150.