Architecture and light in concert

The most expensive concert hall in the world, Danish Radio’s Konzerthuset, depends as much on lighting by Yann Kersalé as it does on great acoustics to make an impact

By day, Danish Radio’s new concert hall is a relatively unremarkable blue cube. Large – measuring 96 m long, 58 m wide and 45 m high – but unremarkable. However, light brings it to life during Copenhagen’s long winter twilights and nights.

The façade shimmers with abstract video projections that play on its surface, and like a magic lantern, the structure coruscates with light transmitted through its blue textile skin.

Inside the building, designed by award-winning architect Jean Nouvel, are four auditoria. They are designed to such demanding standards that the Koncerthuset has surpassed the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as the most expensive concert hall in the world. The final bill was a cool €226 million, about £195 million.

Visitors enter the foyer through a garage door-like entrance on one of the bottom corners of the cube. There are seven levels, starting 2.5 m below the ground and extending to a height of about 30 m. From this expansive space, visitors can enter any of the auditoria.

The biggest hall has 1,800 seats, and the three smaller auditoria have between 250 and 450. Also, there are numerous “stages” in the extensive foyer, making it a performance area in its own right.

Foyer projections
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel worked with his long-time associate Yann Kersalé to create specific moods for the foyer using light. “I try to be sensitive to the environment, spaces and objects,” Kersalé told Lighting. “I try to connect an object and the flow of people around it – and its relationship with the location – to make a living organism.”

The most dynamic part of the foyer lighting is the abstract images and short video sequences – each representing themes from the musical world – that are projected onto the surfaces in warm tones.

To ensure projections of sufficient intensity, Zumtobel developed a powerful gobo projector for the project.

“I try to connect an object and the flow of people around it – and its relationship with the location – to make a living organism.”

The foyer’s 300-square-metre ceiling incorporates 1,600 Ledon LEDs and represents the Copenhagen sky as it appeared on the hall’s opening night.

Specially-developed pillow-like accent lights, dubbed “concrete lights”, are scattered around the foyer walls and nearby corridors. Nouvel and Kersalé’s idea was that light should appear to emanate from the concrete itself, softening the appearance of the surrounding concrete, which itself is embossed with an elephant skin texture.

The concrete is just one example of the raw and untreated concrete and wooden surfaces used throughout the project.

Main concert hall
Ten metres above the ground at the end of a narrowing staircase from the foyer is the large concert hall. Connecting passages are lined with gathered orange felt, which is sparsely lit at floor level. This helps to absorb sound and screen out the outside world.

The concert hall opens up, completely clad in warm wood tones. Rows of seats upholstered in earthy hues are arranged in terraces around the stage. Nouvel’s inspiration was the vineyards of La Lavaux on Lake Geneva.

Everything is bathed in majestically subdued light, initially like that of the evening sun then, as the concert begins, like candlelight.

There are 800 individually controllable lights or lighting groups in the main hall, including a specially developed light fitting inset into the floor that illuminates the walls of the balconies and floods them with soft light.
Higher up, along the upper edge of the room, a lighting band simulates daylight creeping into the space and simultaneously illuminates a huge mural by Alain Bony and Henri Labiole that represents a stylised sunset. Floodlights directed at the gigantic acoustic reflection sail in the centre of the room flood the hall with halogen light.

Orchestrating a virtual concert
All the fittings are orchestrated by a Luxmate lighting management system. The architect and the client co-ordinated the lighting moods in advance using Zumtobel’s Vivaldi interactive planning program. The necessary data had already been created during the planning phase of the project using the Inspirer visualisation software.

In Studio 3, specially manufactured “piano lights” appear to float in space and bring to mind white piano keys

With the lighting control system close to completion, a “virtual concert” was held in a simulation of the concert hall at the Zumtobel presentation centre in Lauterach. It was attended by the architects, planners, representatives of the client and even the hall’s principal conductor.

Visitors are most likely to hear the great musical works in the large concert hall. The three smaller auditoria, in contrast, are more suitable ambience for other types of performance. Each has a different design and acoustic character.

Lighting in Studio 3, for example, includes specially manufactured “piano lights” that appear to float in space and bring to mind white piano keys.

Despite some heavily publicised cost overruns, Copenhagen’s new concert hall is a hit with music critics. The Daily Telegraph says it “looks seductive and sounds terrific”, mentioning the blue glow of the building from outside and the multicoloured lights that create a “mix of playful detail and imposing scale”.

Chalk up another hit for Kersalé and Nouvel, who has moved on to another concert hall project, this time at the Parc de la Villette in Paris.

Project details

Project: Danish Radio Concert Hall, Copenhagen
Client: Denmarks Radio, Copenhagen
Lighting designer: Atelier Yann Kersalé
Architect: Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Paris
Principal suppliers: Zumtobel