The vineyard style is a design of a concert hall where the seating surrounds the stage, rising up in serried rows in the manner of the sloping terraces of a vineyard. It may be contrasted with the shoebox style, which has a rectangular auditorium and a stage at one end (as at the Musikverein). Other possibilities are the fan-shaped (as at the Barbican) and the arena (as at the Royal Albert Hall). The design might be considered a musical theatre in the round.
History When faced with designing a new home for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to replace Die alte Philharmonie, destroyed by bombing in 1944, architect Hans Scharoun observed that "people always gather in circles when listening to music informally". His design won the ensuing competition, with Herbert von Karajan writing to the judges "of all the designs submitted, one seems to stand out above the others ... founded on the principle that the performers should be in the middle ... the deployment of the walls certainly makes good sense acoustically, but the most impressive of all is the complete concentration of the listener on the musical event".
Following the example of the Berliner Philharmonie, the first example in the New World was the Sala Nezahualcoyotl of 1976 in Mexico City. The style is now found globally. For the Philharmonie de Paris, the vineyard concept is extended with balconies rather than banked terraces.
Acoustics
Echoes occur when there is an audible gap between the direct sound and its reflection. The walls surrounding the stage on which the seats are banked help provide the early reflections of sound from the side that are generally considered favourable. Installation of acoustic reflectors is another way of solving the problem.
Notable examples Concert hall Exterior Opened Location Architect Acoustics Capacity Auditorium Berliner Philharmonie 1963 Berlin, Germany Hans Scharoun Lothar Cremer 2,440 Gewandhaus 1981 Leipzig, Germany Rudolf Skoda Wolfgang Fasold 1,900 Suntory Hall 1986 Tokyo, Japan Yasui Architects Nagata Acoustics 2,006 Sapporo Concert Hall 1997 Sapporo, Japan Hokkaido Engineering Consultant Company Nagata Acoustics 2,008 Walt Disney Concert Hall 2003 Los Angeles, USA Frank O. Gehry Nagata Acoustics 2,265 Muza Kawasaki Symphony Hall 2004 Kawasaki, Japan MHS Planners, Architects & Engineers Ltd.Nagata Acoustics 1,997 Koncerthuset 2006 Copenhagen, Denmark Jean Nouvel Nagata Acoustics 1,800 Shenzhen Concert Hall 2007 Shenzhen, China Arata Isozaki Nagata Acoustics 1,680 Helsinki Music Centre 2011 Helsinki, Finland Architectural office Laiho-Pulkkinen-Raunio Nagata Acoustics 1,704 Philharmonie de Paris 2015 Paris, France Jean Nouvel Marshall Day Acoustics 2,400 Lotte Concert Hall 2016 Seoul, South Korea Kohn Pedersen Fox Nagata Acoustics 2,036 Main Hall Elbphilharmonie 2017 Hamburg, Germany Herzog & de Meuron Nagata Acoustics 2,150 National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts 2018 Kaohsiung, Taiwan Francine Houben Albert Yaying Xu 2,000 Busan Concert Hall 2025 Busan, South Korea 2,011
References
External links 1:10 acoustic model of the Philharmonie de Paris