Harbour master - design and construction of a concert hall in Bristol, England

Architectural Review, The, Dec, 1998 by Peter Blundell Jones

This proposal for a concert hall on a waterfront site in Bristol is a very particular response to place and programme; sadly it seems destined to remain unbuilt.

Although architectural competitions are a frequent stimulus to architectural quality and new ideas, the competition process stops client having a dialogue with their architect. Hence the competitive interview with architects chosen not for a specific design but for their approach and past record. Even with this method, architects often produce designs and even elaborate models, but for this project for a concert hall in Bristol. Stefan Behnisch and his collaborators 'submitted relatively little material'.(1) Instead they talked about their approach, their attitude to collaboration, the qualities of the site as they saw it, and their way of doing buildings. Their very openness impressed the jury and made others' concepts look 'rather finite'.(2)

The Behnisch office in its various guises(3) has long believed in Situationsarchitektur, architecture derived from and inspired by a particular place and need. Not for them the one-liner, the simple and finite solution. Rather, they expect to develop their understanding of the situation allowing a design to evolve, reflecting in its complexity the intricate conditions which it serves.

The concert hall project was lottery-funded, and the idea passed easily through the first two hurdles of the lottery process. The site lay at the centre of old Bristol, close to the Cathedral on the southeast facing corner of the old harbour, a part of the Avon's course that was cut off by locks in the early nineteenth century to provide a tide-free dock. With dramatic views to and from many directions, it is twice a corner: on the river front because of the bend, and behind because of its diagonal relationship with New World square, the main approach. Particularly awkward are the unresolved geometrical alignments left by the huge and recent Lloyd's Bank headquarters (Arups, not at their best) which not only refused to complete New World square, but introduced its own rather selfish geometry of a series of broken circles.

Behnisch's early contextual study models are revealing both of method and attitude. While the treatment of the building as a sphere gives it an appropriately jewel-like status, it leaves all else unresolved. The version with two diagonally-placed auditoria works for the square and the harbour edge, but not for Lloyd's incomplete crescent. The more fragmented forms permit a greater wealth and ambiguity of reference, allowing a notional completion of Lloyd's crescent without submitting to its rules. The existence of various fragmented versions suggests an open-ended exploration of the effects, but also assumes a highly articulated building. As the design evolved, it was developed as much from the inside out as from the outside in.

The main spaces were a large concert hall seating around 2000, a more intimate hall for dance and ballet seating around 500, a rehearsal hall, the public foyers and restaurants, and the necessary offices and changing rooms. From the start, the main halls were f articulated as the shaping landmarks within the whole, but equally important was the spatial progression from New World square through the building to the harbour front and its views. Parts would even hang out dramatically over the water's edge, supported by a set columns in the water.

The plan was organized around three main axes. Two, marked on the plans with dotted lines, locate the two public auditoria. The Dance Theatre occupies the north end of the site, parked up against the neighbouring dock building, its axis perpendicular to the harbour wall. For the main hall, a new diagonal axis was introduced linking the harbour corner with New World square. Although none of the routes through the building actually follows this axis, it would be felt as an organizational device through the bulk and symmetry of the hall. The third axis, implied but undrawn, is that of the rectangular wing to north-west, which follows the alignment of New World square. The wing contains offices and rehearsal hall, with independent shops and the entrance for performers on the ground floor.

Between the two halls and their axes develops a complex and transparent foyer space. At ground floor level, this links the major entrance from New World square with the minor one off the harbourside walk. Laced with stairs placed as directional elements to lead you through, traversed by bridges and galleries and topped by a great sloping glass roof, this would be a suitably festive space for promenading crowds in the interval. Beyond the main hall, placed at the prow of the complex to take advantage of the best views over the water, is a series of cafes and restaurants, again open on the ground floor to the harbourside walk.

The concert hall proper was frankly modelled on Scharoun's Berlin Philharmonie, the twentieth-century model for a democratic concert hall (and the main alternative to the traditional shoe-box type) favoured by musicians and audience for its intimacy, coherence and good acoustics.(4) As there, the audience at Bristol was to have been divided into a series of irregular seating terraces, using the fronts as acoustic reflectors. Exploratory work with layouts led to a more vertical design than the Berlin original, and since it was to be used for many different kinds of concert including pop, also a much greater flexibility of stage and stalls seating. The smaller dance hall was planned as a rectangular volume, but again offered a high degree of flexibility of staging.