BUCHEON PHILHARMONIC CONCERT HALL

As part of the city's art promotion plan, the city of Bucheon scheduled the development of its city hall's front yard for the new concert hall. Although the concert hall is mainly dedicated to Bucheon philharmonic orchestra, that traveled and played nationwide without a permanently stationed office and studio for the past 30 years, it is also dedicated to the general public and to organizations that require temporal leasing of the theater. The building size is approximately 21850.71 m² and will house 4 distinctive programs: a shoebox type Concert Hall with 1452 venues; a Black box theater with 302 venues and Restaurant at the top; Academy & Office as supportive functions for Concert hall; and Exhibition space.

The influence of the concept, “Music Hill” reaches the edge of the complex and merge the central civic plaza and proposed open space, providing various scales of outdoor event spaces. The spread out independent facilities represent the symphony of orchestra as cultural diversity within the City of Bucheon. Moreover, its multi-directionality embraces each facet of the contextual conditions. An elevated outdoor event space is divided into multiple areas by facilities, responding to various types of users and as well as the usage of the areas having a close relationship to adjacent facility. Individual allocation of the facilities is attributed to the acoustical qualification of the music programs. Each building contains divergent music programs: Concert Hall; Blackbox Theater; Academy & Office; and Exhibition; which requires distinctive sound quality for the room and separation of the programs from the masterplan scale.

The facade for each facility is designed with distinctive elements that symbolize the different programs within. The academy and office part of the building is designed with louvers representing the musical notes of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No.5, which is the most representative symphony of Bucheon philharmonic orchestra. The skin of the concert hall is designed with minimal panels on the exterior to show the iconic volume of the hall, and is covered with louvers to achieve compositional balance with the other facilities. The west façade of the concert hall is planned as a media façade which encourages public events on the public grass yard. As the main function of the complex, the proposed bent shoebox type hall allows for a visually and acoustically optimized concert hall to be accomplished in a simple manner. In addition, multiple levels of acoustical sophistication such as form of sidewall, micro-shaping strategy, and material considerations based on acoustic simulations play a key role in enhancing the acoustical value and provides exceptional experience to composers, musicians and audiences alike.