Barozzi/Veiga’s Szczecin Philharmonic Hall - The Winner of 2015 Mies Van der Rohe Award

This year’s winning project of an international open competition for the design of a new complex on the site of an old one is the Philharmonic Hall Szczecin, in Szczecin, Poland designed by Spanish Estudio Barozzi/Veiga.

The design team recognized the building potential in the auditorium that was destroyed during the Second World War, and offered new possibilities for cultural and leisure events to the city.

A translucent ribbed glass façade glows after dark and enhances the building’s contrasts with its surrounding. The interiors of the hall are simple, with large skylights setting impressive focal points. The building incorporates a 1000 seat concert  hall, 200 seat venue for Chamber music and several conference rooms and galleries all connected with a grand staircase.

“The jury appreciated the simplicity and clarity of the spaces, their high environmental quality and the color palette resulting from the terracotta tiles left unfinished, showing that  good architecture does not need to be expensive or spectacular” was stated by the jury.

From the architects: “The building emerges from its urban context, influenced by the steeply pitched roofs and the verticality of the city’s residential buildings, by the monumentality of the upright ornaments of its neo-Gothic churches and the heavy volumes of its Classicist buildings, by the towers that dot its entire skyline and the cranes of its port.” 

sources: archdaily.com, dezeen.com, archydaily.com