NZ Co Wins Comp to Design Paris Concert Hall

18 May 2007

MEDIA RELEASE

New Zealand Company Wins Competition to Design $400 million Paris Concert Hall with French Architect

A New Zealand company will be centre-stage when detailed design begins shortly on one of the most significant cultural buildings proposed this century.

Marshall Day Acoustics, teamed with world renowned French Architect Jean Nouvel, has beaten 97 international design teams to win the competition for the design of the $400 million (200 million euro) concert hall in Paris.

The new building for ‘la Philharmonie de Paris’ has been in the City of Paris planning pipeline for the last twenty years. The 20,000 m² facility includes one major concert hall space, two medium size rehearsal rooms, several smaller practice rooms, a foyer, café and library. It will be constructed at the 50 ha cultural park at La Villette in northeast Paris.

“Every architect and acoustician of note in the world was vying for this project. To be short listed was a thrill – to win the design competition was really quite special,” says Christopher Day, Principal at Marshall Day Acoustics.

“It was made very clear to us that the City of Paris wanted a unique building to complement existing ones within the cultural Park. The original design brief contained some major acoustical challenges that we have worked hard with the architect to address and we are very proud of our competition winning concept.”

The innovative 2,400 seat ‘Philharmonic de Paris’ wraps the audience around the stage and features suspended balconies inside a larger volume, attached to the building by access passages, allowing sound to circulate completely around them.

Marshall Day Acoustics was made aware of the project last year by the French Government, and was later invited by eminent French architect Jean Nouvel to be acoustician on their team.

98 teams (including Frank Gehry, Sir Norman Foster and Renzo Piano) submitted detailed credentials as part of the government’s strict competition procedures. Six design teams were short listed and given 10 weeks to produce an initial design concept.

Mr. Day says the project presented a number of specific acoustical challenges in terms of sound quality and noise reduction.

“The way we addressed these challenges in our design was significant in the competition success.

“The very detailed design brief called for enveloping seats around the stage area, excellent acoustic conditions within the concert hall and a major external noise control component,” he said.

“We’re helping design a fantastic new building on a site next to a busy six-lane motorway, there is a nearby underground subway system, it’s close to a 5000 seat indoor rock concert stadium and under a helicopter flight path.

‘Dr Harold Marshall, joint founder of Marshall Day Acoustics, played a key role in the development of this concept,” said Mr. Day. “Our proposed solution, devised during a collaborative working session with the architect, suggests one space within the other – an outer and inner chamber within an asymmetrical design. It’s a completely new design, but one we believe will meet the demanding acoustical and architectural design requirements.”

Mr. Day will move to Paris for an extended period in September to work directly with the design team during an 18 month design phase during which contract documentation will be prepared to support the search for and selection of a builder.

Dr Marshall will join him and the design team from time to time during this period. Specialist acousticians from any of ten Marshall Day international offices will work on the project as required.

Construction of ‘la Philharmonie de Paris’ is expected to begin in 2009 and be completed in 2012.

ENDS

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