{"id":47851,"date":"2014-06-08T18:01:05","date_gmt":"2014-06-08T16:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/porto-builtvoids-casa-da-musica\/"},"modified":"2017-10-25T12:07:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T10:07:32","slug":"porto-builtvoids-casa-da-musica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/porto-builtvoids-casa-da-musica\/","title":{"rendered":"Porto built\/voids – Casa da Musica"},"content":{"rendered":"

This part of Porto was still a city \u2018\u2019intact\u2019\u2019, OMA chose not to articulate the new concert hall as a segment of a small scale circular wall around the Rotunda da Boavista but to create a solitary building standing on the new, more intimate square connected to the historical park of the Rotunda da Boavista and enclosed by three urban blocks. With this concept, issues of symbolism, visibility and access were resolved in one gesture. Through both continuity and contrast, the park on the Rotunda da Boavista, after our intervention, is no longer a mere hinge between the old and the new Porto, but it becomes a positive encounter of two different models of the city. This century has seen an architecturally frantic attempt to escape from the tyranny of the notorious \u2018\u2019shoe-box\u2019\u2019 shaped concert hall. However, after researching the acoustic quality of existing concert halls we had to conclude together with our acoustic specialist that the best halls in the world have a shoe box shape. Most cultural institutions serve only part of a population. A majority knows their exterior shape, only a minority knows what happens inside. OMA addressed the relationship between the Concert Hall and the public inside as well as outside the building by considering the building as a solid mass from which were eliminated the two shoe-box-shaped concert halls and all other public program creating a hollowed out block. The building reveals its contents to the city without being didactic; at the same time the city is exposed to the public inside in a way that has never happened before. The \u2018\u2019remaining spaces\u2019\u2019 between the exposed public functions consist of secondary serving spaces such as foyers, a restaurant, terraces, technical spaces and vertical transport. A continuous public route connects all public functions and \u201cremaining spaces\u201d located around the Grand Auditorium by means of stairs, platforms and escalators: the building becomes an architectural adventure. The loop creates the possibility to use the building for festivals with simultaneous performances; the House of Music.<\/p>\n