A HOUSE FOR MOZART
SMALL CONCERT HALL (Festspielhaus)
SEPTEMBER 2001
€ 30.000.000.-
€ 30.000.000.-
A project with a particular radiance and a challenge - the call for something outstanding: the Small Festspielhaus in Salzburg. A place for music and theatre, a house invented and built by Clemens Holzmeister in order to fulfill those artistic demands. Embedded in the medieval to baroque setting and scenery of Salzburg it seems that in this building a masterpiece of architecture has been achieved.
The Austrian institution - the Salzburg Festival - succeeds in reviving this cultural heritage and making it an event of the first order. Being played and playing, reality and imagination, seeing and being seen, understanding and guessing - a place for dreaming and fleeing from reality.
The task now is to continue this unique symbiosis, to keep its radiance and to re-introduce it where it had been removed by later re-buildings.
The fact that the Felsenreitschule and the small Festpielhaus stand together closely is the cause for the unfavourable situation of the foyer. There is only a narrow entrance to the foyer which is badly constructed and difficult to use and thus appears to be in diametrical opposition to the grandeur of the house itself. Now the existing situation of the rooms has to be cleared out and a transparent architectural language must be formulated. The task is to develop a form similar to that of the large Festspielhaus, which can interpret and present the high cultural demand. Generousness and open-mindedness will be needed to create a new self-consciousness. This will involve even the facade with large windows that can stand in equal rank with those of the large Festspielhaus. The atmosphere of the small Festspielhaus shall spread even to the Max-Reinhardt-Platz, and a “Raumepisode" will have to be created between Böhmsaal, foyer and the outer space.
The walls of the large Festspielhaus will be taken over by the adjoining small house, such as Clemens Holzmeister had meant them to be, but will give them a new appearance and a VIP-lounge with a panoramic view of the city will be added.
The new hall will be construed generously and “voyeuristically”. The dimension will be improved, depths reduced and the amalgamation of stage and hall, visitors and actors will be achieved. Facial expressions will be easier to observe. The acoustics will be optimized. The hall of the Small Festspielhaus will get new dimensions.
The stage machinery will also be modernized so as to be adequate to the things created on the stage.
It will have to be flexible and easy to handle. Not pure machinery that obscures the actors, but variability and flexibility wherever it is possible.
The Austrian institution - the Salzburg Festival - succeeds in reviving this cultural heritage and making it an event of the first order. Being played and playing, reality and imagination, seeing and being seen, understanding and guessing - a place for dreaming and fleeing from reality.
The task now is to continue this unique symbiosis, to keep its radiance and to re-introduce it where it had been removed by later re-buildings.
The fact that the Felsenreitschule and the small Festpielhaus stand together closely is the cause for the unfavourable situation of the foyer. There is only a narrow entrance to the foyer which is badly constructed and difficult to use and thus appears to be in diametrical opposition to the grandeur of the house itself. Now the existing situation of the rooms has to be cleared out and a transparent architectural language must be formulated. The task is to develop a form similar to that of the large Festspielhaus, which can interpret and present the high cultural demand. Generousness and open-mindedness will be needed to create a new self-consciousness. This will involve even the facade with large windows that can stand in equal rank with those of the large Festspielhaus. The atmosphere of the small Festspielhaus shall spread even to the Max-Reinhardt-Platz, and a “Raumepisode" will have to be created between Böhmsaal, foyer and the outer space.
The walls of the large Festspielhaus will be taken over by the adjoining small house, such as Clemens Holzmeister had meant them to be, but will give them a new appearance and a VIP-lounge with a panoramic view of the city will be added.
The new hall will be construed generously and “voyeuristically”. The dimension will be improved, depths reduced and the amalgamation of stage and hall, visitors and actors will be achieved. Facial expressions will be easier to observe. The acoustics will be optimized. The hall of the Small Festspielhaus will get new dimensions.
The stage machinery will also be modernized so as to be adequate to the things created on the stage.
It will have to be flexible and easy to handle. Not pure machinery that obscures the actors, but variability and flexibility wherever it is possible.
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