Celine Lavinia Battolla

C.Battolla1@uni.brighton.ac.uk
University of Brighton
BA (Hons) Architecture
AD573 Second Year Studio: Architectural History and Theory
Karin Jaschke, Tilo Amhoff
Architectural Humanities Essay
04/04/2014
An Architecture that amplifies the experience of music: Hans Scharoun’s Philharmonie
Words: 2107 [not including title, footnotes, bibliography, captions]

Opening 1963: arrival of the festival audience (Photo: Archiv Berliner Philharmoniker)

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1
 AN ARCHITECTURE THAT AMPLIFIES THE EXPERIENCE OF MUSIC: HANS SCHAROUN’S
PHILHARMONIE

“Of all the entries, our

overwhelming preference is for the
one which essentially strives to
incorporate the mass from which
sound emerges into the middle of
the hall (the number of the model
escaped me, but it is white, with a
gold base) – I know of no existing
concert hall which resolves the
seating problem in such an ideal way
as this design.”1 These were some of
conductor Von Karajan’s words
written in a letter in favour of Hans
Scharoun’s proposal [see fig.1] to
Fig 1. The Executive Board of the Society of Friends looking at Hans
the jury of a limited competition Scharoun's model (Photo: Archiv der Gesellschaft der Freunde der Berliner
that took place in 1956: his building Philharmoniker e. V.)

was chosen amongst twelve others

to house the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. “Still at the periphery of West Berlin when it opened
in 1963, it became part of the new urban centre after the fall of the Berlin Wall”2, and nowadays it
still remains the musical heart of the capital.

The Berlin Philharmonie comprises two music halls: a main auditorium that can host
approximately 2,500 people, and a smaller Chamber music hall that can accommodate up to 1,200
people. The former was designed by Scharoun, while the latter was a design by his pupil Edgar
Wisniewski, inspired by some of Scharoun’s sketches drawn years before, and was built only after
his death.
This essay will focus on the phenomenological aspect of the Philharmonie concert hall, with a
particular interest in how it relates to its complex acoustics and spatial layout, thus on how the
experience of a concert is amplified in this particular concert hall.

Architect Hugo Häring, who was together with Scharoun an exponent of Organic Architecture,
affirmed that he firmly believed in the Leistungsform, the operational performance, and that it
would “lead to every object receiving and retaining its own essential shape.”3 In his opinion the
Philharmonie successfully embodied these principles. Along the same lines Scharoun stated:
“Music in the centre- this, from the beginning has been the guiding principle which has shaped the
new Philharmonie auditorium”4.

1
J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993
2
‘Music and people first’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/
3
Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture
Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 45
4
Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6
November-1 December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun)
2
 He placed music, both conceptually and
physically, with the orchestra in the visual
centre, at the core of his design [see fig.2]:
“The most immediate consideration was
this: is it mere chance that, whenever
people hear improvised music, they
immediately gather round in a circle? I set
myself the task of translating to the concert
hall this quite natural process, whose
psychological aspect everyone can
understand. The music should also provide
Fig 2. Scharoun’s sketch of 1956 (Photo: Archiv Akademie der the spatial and visual focus.”5
Künste Berlin)

Despite the initial perplexity of the acoustic engineer Lothar Cremer, who worked in close contact
with Scharoun, the acoustics turned out excellent, and “the complex perspective shape of the hall
produces an ethereal and fantastic atmosphere enhancing concentration on the music.”6

Architect Peter Blundell Jones describes the music hall as follows: “Convex in the character, the
tent-like ceiling is very much linked with the acoustics, with the desire to obtain the maximum
diffusion of music via the convex surfaces. Here the sound is not reflected from the narrow side of
a hall, but rises from the depth and centre, moving towards all sides, descending and spreading
evenly among the listeners below. Every effort was taken to transmit the sound waves to the most
distant part of the auditorium by the shortest possible route. The diffusion is also served by the
refraction of the auditorium walls, and the multi-levelled, heterogeneous arrangement of the
‘vineyard terraces’”7, inspired by the idea of landscape.
To this “landscape”, the tent-like structure acts as a “skyscape” where, 12 meters above the
platform, ten clouds were suspended, slightly curving downwards. The pyramids that are fitted
around the edges of the ceiling and that are packed with material to absorb low frequencies, also
ensure an equal diffusion throughout the hall. Large ‘V’ columns were arranged in order to direct
the complex spaces onto the main axis of the building.
Wisniewski emphasized that the “countermovement between the rising rows of the stalls and the
shape of the ceiling as it glides down”8 results in sound waves that “are necessarily diffused in a
highly concentrated form to the most distant seats as well”9.

As early as 1920 Scharoun had imagined the ideal theatre space as a modern-day symposium
where there is “One person opposite another, arranged in circles in sweeping, suspended arcs
around soaring crystal pyramids.”10 This idea flourished more than thirty years later in the final
seating arrangement that contains 2220 seats that surround, just like in an amphitheater, the
orchestra that is not exactly in the centre of the space, but in the visual centre. This arrangement

5
J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 (quoting Hans Scharoun, 2 September 1957)
6
Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture
Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 38
7
Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978, pg.36
8
Rainer Esche, ‘Sounding Space’ http://www2.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/50-years-of-the-philharmonie/acoustic/
date unknown
9
Rainer Esche, ‘Sounding Space’ http://www2.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/50-years-of-the-philharmonie/acoustic/
date unknown
10
‘Music and People first’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/ date unknown

3
creates an intimacy that according to Scharoun “ is essential for direct engagement in the musical
event, for individual, creative participation…”11
The audience is tied to the action, rather than viewing it as a separate event on the stage. Each
‘terrace’ accommodates approximately 300 people and has its own separate exit to the foyer at its
own level, creating a convenient
circulation strategy and reducing
circulation space in plan to a
minimum. [see fig. 3 & 4]

“The stunning invention of the valley-

section is reciprocated acoustically by
the catenary tent of the roof and the
many faceted galleries”12 that enable
“a direct and co-creative share in the
production of music”13. This multi-
faceting structure, with its inner
porousness and permeability of all the
audience blocks among each other,
forms a harmonic, pleasant space for
the beholder – without being
overwhelming.

The architect’s aforementioned

conception of the building, which
starts from the event of the concert,
suggests that structure is completely
suppressed because it can play no part
in the composition.
The way he deals with details further
illuminates Scharoun’s approach:
Fig 3 & 4. Plan and Sectional Plan of the Berlin Philharmonie
structural articulation was a mere
expression of conjunctions and adjacencies and was not conceived of as the directing and control
of forces.
The architect explains that “Everything here serves to prepare for the experience of music, all
spaces are related in dynamic tension to the solemn serenity of the auditorium which in the true
sense of the world crowns the building.”14
The visitor is welcomed by “labyrinthine foyer, which lends itself to the ritual of the interval
parade, of seeing and being seen”.15 When crossing the threshold of the music hall, everything,
from the circulation routes, the landings, the wall planes to the soffits, suggests a sinuous
composition of movements and prepares the visitor to a mirroring musical experience: “by

11
J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 (quoting Hans Scharoun, 2 September 1957)
12
Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture
Gallery; University of Brighton (quoting Hugo Häring), pg. 45
13
Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978
14
Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1
December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun)
15 Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture
Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 38

4
slipping cascades of stairs over and under one another in diagonal relationships that begin to
challenge one’s sense of order and orientation” Scharoun is able to “encourage a choreography of
dynamic relationships among the persons moving within their domains”.16 Häring’s description of
the concert hall further engages with the idea of movement: “Indubitably, the dramaturgical
succession from the entryway covered by a canopy through the softly illuminated ticket office to
the darker narrowing for ticket collection, behind which the foyer opens up, bright and festive of
an evening, lively in an urbane and vitalizing way, is a tour de force in terms of the psychology of
space. It generates an excited anticipation to which one can ascribe almost erotic qualities.
Strolling or hurrying through the foyer and up and down various stairways, galleries, balconies and
bridges, a climax is prepared in several stages that culminate upon entering the auditorium.”17
Moreover the atmosphere of the hall is very much influenced by the use of light [see fig. 5], that
has an important role to play, especially when it comes to the experiential aspect of the building,
where it becomes crucial, as the architect himself states: “Today’s lighting technology is excellent
for setting a scene”.18
Overall this building is an outstanding
example of how “the challenge for
architecture to heighten phenomenal
experience”19 was undertaken and
successfully overcome: the experience of
music is multiplied, expanded, intensified
and spread out to reach all the listeners.
As pointed out by Architect Matthew
Wells, Scharoun was observant, and the
tight functionalism of spaces and details
shows a keen eye and encyclopaedic
knowledge of human activity: “It is said
he would often point out small incidents
Fig 5. The light enhances the surreal aura of the concert hall. of interest while passing through the
streets”.20 It is interesting to see how this
scrupulous attention appeared more than twenty years before the Philharmonie, when the
building was only the apple in the architect’s eye: Scharoun in fact produced some interesting
watercolour drawings between 1939 and 1945, that, unlike his previous ones, swarm with people
and are in some way an anticipation of what his future architecture would focus on.

16 Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture, pg. 66
17 Gerwin Zohlen, ‘Space- Music- People’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/architecture/
date unknown
18
J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 (quoting Hans Scharoun)
19
Steven Holl, Juhanni Pallasmaa and Alberto Pèrez-Gòmez, Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture,
Architecture and Urbanism
20
Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture
Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 41

5
 According to the Austrian-British
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
“what [the watercolour drawings]
deal with are the two things that
mattered most to Scharoun at a
time in his life when he was utterly
deprived of any chance to do
anything about them but draw-
spatial experience and its relation to
human activities. As drawings they
are bound to fall short but
construed properly they are a
stunning insight into what could
Fig 6. Acoustic model of the concert hall (hence the scale of 1:9) (Archiv have been built in Stuttgart, in
Akademie der Künste Berlin)
Kassel, in Mannheim and was at
last built in the Philharmonie. These are the drawings of an imagination that feeds upon
sensations of spatiality and if movement ordered in relation to foci of enormous concentrations,
and whose interest in constructional elements ad their figurative disposition in facades (all the
things that we can draw, the elements themselves of disegno) is of a secondary order.”21
Therefore it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that the Philharmonie represents revolutionary
ideals not only for what concerns the way it totally rejects both rectangular organisation and
symmetry with its unorthodox shape but, more importantly, because the architect thought
radically within the building: “the conception of the building does not start from an aesthetic
formula, but from the event of the concert”.22

In many ways this uncommon shape worked better than most of its rectangular cousins, not only
for what concerns the incredible acoustics, that add a layer of intensity to a piece of music already
brimming with emotion, but, consequently to this, “the act of music-making and the experiencing
of music, both take place in one and the same place. […] Man, space, music- here they are related
to each other in a new way”.23
Blundell Jones affirms that “As a visual experience the hall is quite remarkable and photographs
give little idea of the strange quality of its shifting planes”24. He continues “After sitting in one
place for a while, one feels that one has grasped it, but then one only has to move slightly to be
proved quite wrong. Walking around the hall and watching it change its apparent size is a
fascinating experience. Just as in a real landscape hills appear much smaller from the middle of a
valley than they do when one is standing on them, so the hall seems much smaller when seen
from the centre than it does when seen from the edges”.25

The mass of listeners on one hand is broken up by the banks of seats facing in different directions,
stressing the individuality of every person in the hall, making them more aware of one another,
and on the other hand, with its omnidirectional qualities, sound incorporates it in a unique,
21
Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture
Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 44
22
Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1
December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun)
23
Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1
December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun)
24
Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978, pg. 39
25
Ibid.

6
universal experience. It is an example of how “Architecture strengthens the existential experience,
one’s sense of being in the world, and this is essentially a strengthened experience of self.”26

Fig 7. The concert becomes a unifying, universal experience.

According to Architect Juhani Pallasmaa “The wide, open spaces of contemporary streets do not
return sound, and in the interiors of today’s buildings echoes are absorbed and censored. The
programmes recorded music of shopping malls and public spaces eliminates the possibility of
grasping the acoustic volume of space. Our ears have been blinded.”27 But with the Philharmonie
concert hall an unorthodox approach, characterized by the centrality of the orchestra that would
considerably affect the acoustics, was attempted for the first time and the outcome exceeded all
expectations: the sound quality resulted to be remarkable to the point that another similar task
was undertook with the more recent aforementioned Chamber Music Hall. “[In the Philharmonie]
the creation and the experience of music occur in a hall not motivated by formal aesthetics, but
whose design was inspired by the very purpose it serves. Man, music and space – here they meet
in a new relationship.”28

As affirmed by the great composer and pianist Ludwig Van Beethoven “Music is a higher revelation
than all wisdom and philosophy”29 and, as a matter of fact, the Philharmonie Music Hall engages
each and every visitor in a universal experience, thus inciting them to reconsider the limits of
their self and their place in the universe. While experiencing a concert in the Philharmonie one is
fully taken over by the bliss of music in the most natural and pleasing way possible.

26
Juhani Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin, 43. Multi-sensory experience
27
Juhani Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin, 52. Acoustic Intimacy
28
Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978, pg.36
29
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/569905-music-is-a-higher-revelation-than-all-wisdom-and-philosophy

7
Bibliography

Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture, 1977

Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978

J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993

Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Pèrez-Gòmez, Questions of Perception

Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an

exhibition held 6 November-1 December 1974

Juhani Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin, 1996

Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects,
Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton

Gerwin Zohlen, ‘Space- Music- People’ http://www.berliner-

philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/architecture/ date unknown

Rainer Esche, ‘Sounding Space’ http://www2.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/50-years-of-

the-philharmonie/acoustic/ date unknown

‘Music and People first’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/