2005 - marc

Budapest builds cultural complex International stars at the National Concert Hall

Budapest’s Palace of Art was designed with the intention of building not only for today but for the future. The complex has created a dialogue between the traditional and the avant-garde in all art forms. Fitted with state-of-the-art technology, the building houses the Ludwig Museum, the National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chorus and Music Library, as well as the National Dance Theatre. The complex gives room for the Festival Theatre, and includes the impressive National Concert Hall.

The Palace of Arts is located in the Millennium City Centre, right next to the National Theatre. Its size allows for staging large-scale performances as well. The programme for 2005 features international stars in dance and musical performances, classical music concerts, art exhibitions and other events. Through these programmes, the complex on the eastern embankment of the Danube in Budapest’s Ninth District will be one of the most buoyant cultural and social venues in all of Central Europe. The HUF 31 billion building complex is one of a kind: a development project of this scale is unprecedented in the past 150 years in Hungary. Construction of the Palace of Arts started in August 2002 and was completed in the autumn of 2004. The testing period began on January 8 and the opening concert is planned for the eve of the national holiday of March 15.

The Palace of Arts is laid out on an area of 64,000 square metres and if every corner of it was filled at the same time, it would hold some 4,500 people. There are three main units: the Ludwig Museum, the National Concert Hall and the Festival Theatre, as well as facilities catering to the various programmes - often scenes of all-day entertainment opportunities themselves - such as buffets, cafés, Internet cafés, panoramic terraces, souvenir shops and bookshops.
The National Concert Hall conforms to the highest acoustic standards and was designed to be at a par with the best concert halls of the world. The concert hall is in the heart of the building complex and its distinguished “shoebox” shape dictates the character of the whole architectural design. The 25-metre wide, 52-metre long auditorium resembles a church nave; seating 1,699 people plus there is standing room for an additional 136, with the possibility of seating another 190 people in the immediate proximity of the stage, if necessary. The number of seats can be adjusted to the needs of the actual performance.

The orchestra stall, which is level with the seating area, can be converted to three different sizes with mobile and expandable parts, or even turned into an orchestral pit on demand. An impressive part of the hall is the sound-diffusing unit, which is above the concert stage, but spreads to above the seating area, a special effects system which can rise, descend or rotate with movable wings, and also contains the equipment to provide lighting effects, as well as microphone sets for sound recordings or screens and speakers for film projections. A change in acoustic effects may be achieved also by the resonance chambers found on and by the sides of the stage, which has large baffles capable of altering the hall’s volume size and thus modify its reverberative intervals. It is possible to pull drapes entirely around the concert hall - which can has the function of a recording studio - and thus reduce reverberation time to less than one second. In contrast, if all 84 panels of the resonance chambers surrounding the internal core space are opened fully, reverberation may be as long as four seconds - which opens the door to hosting performances in a wide range of musical apparatus and still providing an ideal acoustic environment.
The hallway leading from the lobby to the concert hall is fitted on two sides with a “Musharab” of folding screens covered by fine embroideries - reminiscent of an Arab design. This corridor is furnished with designer dark seats for those who wish to repose during the intermission or before the performance. Moving away from the Musharab, the walls are flanked by sound and light traps (individually designed, dark-toned, sound-proof embroidery covers) and on entering the hall the visitor comes face to face with the light maple wall-covering and sculptures by György Jovánovics. The artist designed these in consultation with Russell Johnson, head of the hall’s acoustic specialist ARTEC, and the resulting works are not only pleasing to the eye, but fully integrated into the acoustic plan, therefore providing excellent sound quality.

The first performance at the concert hall was of Mozart, with Zoltan Kocsis conducting the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the famous soprano Andrea Rost. During the trial phase, such high-standard performers came to the Concert Hall as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the internationally acclaimed conductor Charles Dutoit, the Greek violin soloist Leondas Kavakos, and pianist András Schiff with his group of soloists called Cappella Andrea Barca, who gave a concert for the first time in Hungary.

The National Concert Hall’s programme highlights for this year include a concert by the London-based Academy of St. Martin in the Fields on April 16. This chamber orchestra, founded by Sir Neville Marriner in 1959, is one of the pioneers of authentic early music and it will bring pieces by Vivaldi and Schubert to the concert hall, accompanied by the soloist Joshua Bell.