An Elgin concert hall
March 13th, 2008
Casa da Musica, Porto, Portugal - britannica.com
If it looks like this, I won’t complain.
One of the reasons that I’ve found it hard to support an Elgin concert hall is that I have a sense of what kind of building they might build. One of the papers reported sometime last year or maybe the previous year that the council had visited a number of concert halls, and declared that they were impressed by some of these buildings. The problem was the buildings they took a liking to are architectural atrocities that would have done nothing to enhance Elgin’s image as a cultural center, but could actually have made our city a laughingstock–and that at a cost of $125M.
That was the old council, and now we have a new council, fortunately. I’m sure they will choose better, but we’ll have to wait and see what the indications are. I can’t support bad architecture, because it would squander our resources. If we’re building something, we have to make sure we get the most bang for the buck. It must be something that transforms Elgin’s image, in the way that the Guggenheim Bilbao transformed Bilbao. If they do that, then I won’t complain.
But I also think that a museum would yield a better return on investment. So if we have to choose between a museum and a concert hall, I would pick the museum, assuming they are of equal architectural worth.
The reason I think this is two-fold:
One, we already have the Hemmens and a symphony orchestra. Building a new concert hall doesn’t add to our cultural offerings, because the symphony is already there. An art museum, on the other hand, rounds out our offerings.
Two, an art museum is always open. It’s a destination that you can go to anytime. It’s not just open when there’s a show. The building itself is a destination. For this reason, it has more of an impact on the street scene, and helps to ensure regular and continuous traffic–as Jane Jacobs advocated. It’s more “open to the public” than a concert hall, and as such it attains greater mindshare and publicity.
An art museum is also likely to come with a significantly smaller price tag.
But if they do build a concert hall, they should take a close look at the one pictured at the top of this post. It’s the Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal, designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA, and completed on a much smaller budget than what the city council has considered. It has brought great fame to Porto.
