Elbphilharmonie
The Elbphilharmonie (German pronunciation: [ˈɛlpfɪlhaʁmoˌniː] ; "Elbe Philharmonic Hall"), popularly nicknamed Elphi, is a concert hall in the HafenCity quarter of Hamburg, Germany, on the Grasbrook peninsula of the Elbe River.
The new glassy construction resembles a hoisted sail, water wave, iceberg or quartz crystal resting on top of an old brick warehouse (Kaispeicher A, built in 1963) near the historical Speicherstadt. The project is the result of a private initiative by the architect and real estate developer Alexander Gérard and his wife Jana Marko, an art historian, who commissioned the original design by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, who developed and promoted the project (since 2003 in cooperation with the Hamburg-based real estate developer and investor Dieter Becken) for 3.5 years until the City of Hamburg decided to develop the project by ...Read more
The Elbphilharmonie (German pronunciation: [ˈɛlpfɪlhaʁmoˌniː] ; "Elbe Philharmonic Hall"), popularly nicknamed Elphi, is a concert hall in the HafenCity quarter of Hamburg, Germany, on the Grasbrook peninsula of the Elbe River.
The new glassy construction resembles a hoisted sail, water wave, iceberg or quartz crystal resting on top of an old brick warehouse (Kaispeicher A, built in 1963) near the historical Speicherstadt. The project is the result of a private initiative by the architect and real estate developer Alexander Gérard and his wife Jana Marko, an art historian, who commissioned the original design by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, who developed and promoted the project (since 2003 in cooperation with the Hamburg-based real estate developer and investor Dieter Becken) for 3.5 years until the City of Hamburg decided to develop the project by itself. It is the key project of the new Hafencity development and the tallest inhabited building in Hamburg, with a final height of 108 metres (354 ft).
The Elbphilharmonie was officially inaugurated with concerts of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and a light show on 11 January 2017.
On 2 April 2007, the foundation stone was laid in the Kaispeicher A warehouse, in the presence of then First Mayor of Hamburg Ole von Beust, Hochtief Construction AG CEO Henner Mahlstedt, the project coordinator for the City of Hamburg Hartmut Wegener (dismissed in 2008 for mismanagement of the project[1]), Hamburg Minister of Culture Karin von Welck and architect Pierre de Meuron.
In 2007, the construction was scheduled to be finished by 2010 with an estimated cost of €241 million.[2][3] In November 2008, after the original contract was amended, the costs for the project were estimated at €450 million.[4] In August 2012, the costs were re-estimated to be over €500 million, which should also cover the increased cost for a strengthened roof. Construction work officially ended on 31 October 2016 at a cost of €866 million.[5]
The first public test concert at the Elbphilharmonie was held on 25 November 2016.[6][7] The official opening concert took place on 11 January 2017 with a performance by the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under direction of Thomas Hengelbrock.[8] The first musical selection was "Pan" from Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid.[8]
The project was criticized because of its cost and schedule overruns; construction was originally estimated to cost about €200 million, while the final cost was €870 million.[9][10] However, upon completion, Der Spiegel in a comparative analysis suggested that the overrun was relatively "modest" compared to some other international mega-projects.[11]
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