KONZERTHAUS BLAIBACH BY PETER HAIMERL ARCHITEKTUR

A sleek concrete concert hall encased in stone

Great community spaces are at the heart of any successful urban renewal, which is perhaps why the renovation of the German city Blaibech centralized around a communal plaza and community buildings. As part of the project, German Architecture firm Peter Haimerl Architektur designed a rather curious concert hall.

Tilted up at an abrupt angle, the granite-clad exterior looks like a fallen meteorite come to rest at the most unlikely of spots. Underneath the slightly opened edge is an entrance, barely visible but for subtle steps leading underground. Indeed, the concert hall itself is entirely underground.

Inside, concert-goers are greeted with a foyer of sloping, wood-paneled walls that hide the coat check, toilets and a bar. Past the foyer, the inner concert hall’s monolithic layers of pre-cast concrete are revealed, brightly lit with unanticipated light. Precisely placed LED light slits illuminate the space but also serve as a discreet bass absorber. Bass absorbers are also placed under the steps, and the very angle of the concrete slabs was calculated to improve acoustics.

The 200-seat auditorium slopes downward towards the stage. Silver wire seating “floats” along the descent, blending unobtrusively into the concrete walls and drawing all focus towards the stage. The stage is also lit with LED lighting and when combined with the light slits, it becomes easy forget that the entirety is well below the surface of the Earth.