An immaterial aesthetic in harmony with the music.
A mineral building with the appearance of a mound integrated into the Parc de la Villette, the Philharmonic offers innovative forms. Its shiny aluminum swirls around the central concert hall contrast with its matte envelope with elegant angles, covered with a pavement of birds in different shades of gray.
The Philharmonic has been designed as a real living space where artists and audiences meet. Many services are offered: two large rehearsal rooms, five rehearsal rooms per desk, ten work studios, a score library, ten dressing rooms, an educational center, a conference room, an exhibition space, and many food and beverage outlets.
An exceptional acoustic level.
Acoustics were a major concern, since the tolerated background noise for the large concert hall corresponds to NR10, i.e. 15 dB(A), the noise of a snowflake falling on snow. This strong constraint required a particularly innovative design of the aeraulic innervation, because of the importance of the distributed flows and the will to completely hide the technical installations.
Another acoustic challenge was to isolate the hall from surrounding noise, as the Philharmonic is located near the ring road and the Zénith. The concept implemented is that of the "box within the box", thanks to the disassociation of the walls and the installation of a double roof.
Scenography and modularity.
Because the Philharmonic's programming is not limited to classical ensembles, it was necessary to make the large auditorium as flexible as possible, both in terms of scenography, acoustics and technique.
The auditorium differs from frontal models, known as "shoeboxes", and favors enveloping the stage with the audience, on the model of the Berlin Philharmonic, in order to reinforce the feeling of intimacy between the performers and their audience.
With this enveloping structure, the distance between the conductor and the farthest listener is no more than 32 meters. To ensure good acoustic performance, the total volume of the hall does not exceed 30,000 m3, which gives the sound field time to develop and provides a reverberation that is particularly valuable for symphony concerts.
