Zenith Music Hall

Added : 08 Aug 2010 | Visits : 1909 | Average votes : %

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The new Zenith Music Hall, with its playful form and character, is an important project for the exhibition area in Strasbourg. It is expected to give new impulse to the future development of the city’s infrastructure. The concept of the design is based on a modular and a well-balanced organisation of the different elements - good views for all spectators, best acoustics and optimised cost management. The music hall provides ideal facilities for the guests and the performing artists.

The 10,000 seats are arranged in a circular pattern within the tiered structure. The building is to be understood as a single, unifying and autonomous sculpture. By layering and rotating the ellipsoid metal façade structure, the design receives a dynamic character. The architects designed the steel rings as a series of shifting and overlapping ellipses, creating a dynamic form outside and bold spaces within. This is underlined with the translucent textile membrane, which covers the steel frame and creates magnificent light effects. These orange membranes also cover the volume of the music hall itself. The heart of the building is a totally enclosed and protected space, which creates a special theatre atmosphere. Projections on the outer skin convert the façade into a huge billboard communicating with the passers-by about the upcoming events. At daytime, the membrane is just very orange, but at night the building lights up like a big lantern showing the ant-like support structure of the façade and the projected images, video or text of the events happening inside. On the north side of the building, the overlapping ellipses form the lobby area. Here, large, canted steel columns, arrayed around the reinforced concrete hall, and intermediate braces, support the tubular elliptical rings. On the south side of the structure, where the space narrows, the braces alone connect the rings with the concrete core. It is the skin that sets this latest Zenith apart. The material, a textile membrane, makes the building a bit like a tent, but in its materialisation it goes beyond that. The fireproof membrane of fiberglass with a silicone coating on both sides is composed of 40 pieces of fabric, with each seam of the panel electrically welded, then bracketed and bolted to the ring. Intermediary cables further hold the membrane in place and create the sharp creases in the profile. The roof structure is composed of 22 steel trusses, which radiate from a central hub to the concrete walls of the auditorium from which catwalks are suspended. Included in this arrangement is a continuous cross beam that spans through the hub from one concrete wall to another. By its playful form and character the latest Zenith music hall contributes to the Varietee Theaters, which is a part of French tradition.

Architect: Massimiliano Fuksas Architetto
Location: Strasbourg, France