Creative Environment and Urbanism: Zaryadye Concert Hall project

Section “Creative Environment and Urbanism” of the V International Cultural Forum in St. Petersburg featured a presentation of the Concert Hall to be opened in 2018 in Zaryadye. Chief Architect of Moscow Sergey Kuznetsov and the Director of the Mariinsky Theatre Valery Gergiev.

Today, the project of Zaryadye Park is in hands of the best team one could imagine. In 2014, with the support of Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, we launched an international architectural competition and selected the winner concept by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The project contains a lot of original ideas and proposals, such as a ‘floating’ bridge, an embankment connected with the underground museum and the park itself, the reconstruction of the existing heritage sites; however, it is the Philharmonic Hall to become a real landmark. The building will be located in the southeastern part of the park, from the side of Kitaigorodskii drive. A special feature of the concert hall are the facades, two of which will be located in an inclined terrain: the concert hall will be ‘dug into’ the hill; on the other side it will have a so-called „glass cover“: a transparent screen with wooden crosspieces, under which trees will grow. It will give an expressive silhouette to the building and shield not only the Philharmonic, but also the outdoor amphitheater from bad weather. The ‘cover’ will have solar panels“, said Sergey Kuznetsov.

„Zaryadye Hall will have more unique opportunities for staging operas and ballets than the second stage of the Mariinsky Theatre built ten years ago. There is a bad practice — you build a philharmonic hall and then spend millions on improvement and updating. Instead we want to build a hall that will not need any improvements. It should become a perfect acoustic instrument that will touch the soul and the imagination of the audience once and for all. I really believe in its success“, noted Valery Gergiev.

He highlighted one of the key functions of the Hall — to attract the attention of children to classical music, so that every student in Moscow could say: “I’ve been there!”.

„Children are very quick to respond to everything: the scenery, the color, and music. We should make performances first of all for children. I have no doubt that the new Zaryadye Hall will play a huge role in helping Russia to remain a country of great music and great musicians“, stressed Valery Gergiev.

To create the acoustic effect in the Zaryadye Philharmonic Hall we invited a Japanese expert - Director of Nagata Acoustics, Yasuhisa Toyota, who designed more than 50 theaters and concert halls around the world.

Yasuhisa Toyota: „We have chosen a very atypical structure of the hall, where the audience sit all around the stage rather than seeing it from one direction. This creates a close relationship between the audience and the musicians. It is hard to tell where we will see the work of our acoustic engineers when the construction is over. It is almost impossible to answer it, because we are working very closely with the architects. We do not use microphones in classical music. The sound is generated by the architecture, the size and shape of the room, and the material. All of it should be analyzed from the beginning. This is how we worked on the concept of the second stage of the Mariinsky Theatre.... “.

„The Project of the Concert Hall is very complex, and after the construction of the facades the structure will require some tuning, like a musical instrument. We plan to open it in 2018“, said Sergey Kuznetsov.

The Grand Philharmonic Hall is designed for 1450-1550 seats (depending on the area of ​​use of the orchestra pit); there will be also a rehearsal room where chamber and solo concerts can be held with a capacity of up to 400 seats (including a maximum of 80 standing places) with a full set of recreational, technological, engineering and supporting facilities. On the area of ​​23.6 m2 there will be a recording studio, a snack bar and a chill out lounge with an outdoor terrace. Commissioner: Mosinzhproekt, JSC. Architectural concept: AM TPO Reserve.

Venue: Saint-Petersburg. The State Hermitage Museum. Headquarters

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