Casa da Música

A view of the location along the Avenida da Boavista and neighbourhood of the same name

Casa da Música on opening day (14 April 2005)

On 1 September 1998, the Ministro da Cultura (Ministry of Culture) announced the construction of Casa da Música, during the ambit of Porto's 2001 tenure as the European Capital of Culture.[1]

The building engineers were AFA Arup Group Limited (London), together with Afassociados (Porto).[1] It was designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, in association with the Porto Office of Metropolitan Architecture, the scene agency Ducks scéno, the acoustician Renz Van Luxemburg and AFA, while the interiors were designed by Inside Outside (Petra Blaisse). These included the 13 large surfaces, ranging from 22 by 15 metres (72 ft × 49 ft) to 65 by 8 metres (213 ft × 26 ft), with a gold leaf woodgrain pattern in the large auditorium.[1]

Its location was decided on 8 March 1999, on a municipal tract of Boavista.[1] The site was once a staging area for trams.[1] Construction occurred in the next four years over schedule, and cost 100 million euros. The project challenged engineers because of the building's unusual configuration.[1]

It was open to the public on 14 April 2005, with performances by Clã and Lou Reed, while the official inauguration occurred the next day in the presence of the Portuguese president, prime minister, other notable politicians and members of Portuguese society, with a concert by the Orquestra Nacional do Porto (Porto National Orchestra).[1][2] It immediately became a city icon. Featuring a 1300-seat auditorium suffused with daylight, it is the only concert hall in the world with two walls made entirely of glass.[3]

On 5 November 2005, an administrative process was begun to classify the building as Imóvel de Interesse Público (Property of Public Interest).[1]

The building's design was acclaimed worldwide. Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic from The New York Times, called it the "most attractive project the architect Rem Koolhaas has ever built" and indicated that it is "a building whose intellectual ardor is matched by its sensual beauty". He also compared it to the "exuberant design" in Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. "Only looking into the original aspect of the building, this is one of the most important concert halls built in the last 100 years". He compares it to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, in Los Angeles, and the Berliner Philharmonie.[4]

A foundation, the Fundação Casa da Música, was instituted on 26 January 2006 under decree 16/2006.[1] But, in reference to its classification, the process was archived on 15 March 2011.[1]

In September 2008, the Casa da Música hosted the Orquestra Nacional do Porto, which took part in exploratory public presentations in which music was captured alongside the musicians' and conductor's expressive gestures. Various sensor networks sourced and translated musical expressions into computer-driven visual interpretations (which included lighting, projected images, and real-time improvisations).[5] Scientific articles were also published on special-needs performances and workshops in the Casa da Música in 2007[6] and 2008.[7]

The building is shaped as a nine-floor-high asymmetrical polyhedron covered in plaques of white cement, cut by large undulated or plane glass windows.[1] The building is accessible through a front stairway and stands at the center of a vast open plaza of marble, yellow with hint of brown.[1] Its isolated architectural form, deeply set back from adjacent streets, including the main Avenida da Boavista, and from the city's prime ceremonial public space, the Praça Mouzinho de Albuquerque, is evocative of the hull of a ship beached at low tide. It deliberately ignores and challenges the neoclassical order of converging avenues and the vast oval of continuous blocks centered on a tall monument, Heroes of the Peninsular War, that has defined the Praça.

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  The reception hall
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  One of the distinct interior views of the main auditorium
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  The azulejo walls on the VIP hall
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  The interactive computer room in Casa da Música

• World Architecture Survey

• Casa da Música
• Office for Metropolitan Architecture
• Petra Blaisse's Inside Outside