OK, it’s true. I’ve
been slightly obsessed with the new concert hall for the Orchestre de Paris
(the “big” symphony orchestra in town).
The new hall is called the Philharmonie de Paris, it opened in January,
it was designed by Jean Nouvel (who also designed the new Guthrie – yuk!), and
it’s located way the heck out in the northeast of Paris (it almost touches the
Peripherique, the “freeway” that encircles the city and divides Paris from the suburbs).
The orchestra moved out of their previous home, Salle
Pleyel in the tony 8th arrondissement, a convenient neighborhood for
people-you’d-think-would-enjoy-symphony-concerts, close to the center of the
city, with multiple transportation options, and close to multiple eateries and
music-related shops.
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| Entrance to the smaller concert hall, with the Philharmonie in the background |
The new Philharmonie is located in vast entertainment area
called Parc de la Villette in a part of town that’s, well, not quite as tony. The Parc
also houses a science museum, a smaller concert hall, an IMAX theater, a
historical musical instrument museum, a huge pop concert arena (6000+ seats),
some smaller musical performance spaces, a couple theatre/dance stages, a giant
open-space-under-a-tent for circus performances, the Paris Conservatory of
Music, etc. etc. etc., as well as some gardens & green space.
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| Green space near the entrance |
When I arrived there was a skateboarding demo underway on the huge plaza. City planners are clearly trying to bring together people of diverse economic classes, cultures, ages and interests to a space where there’s always something interesting happening.
Unfortunately, they don’t have the transportation
logistics worked out. The main avenue
leading to the area, Avenue Jean Jaurès, is too narrow for all of the buses,
autos and taxis needed to deliver large numbers of people to the area (and it’s
the main artery for all kinds of delivery vehicles too). There appears to be only
one parking garage and oh, my, did the people trying to enter it this afternoon
ever clog up traffic! Only one subway line serves the area. A few bus lines do, as does the tramway (one
of Paris’ best-kept transportation secrets – more about that later).
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| Missing tiles on the terrace seating area |
There’s been a bit of controversy about the construction
of the building (cost & schedule over-runs to start with!), and there is
almost NO interior signage (sadly, a “feature” of many of Jean Nouvel’s
buildings!), and you can clearly see that some parts are unfinished, and some of the
very unusual tile-work is falling off the exterior. Jean Nouvel was so angry about
it opening before it was ready that he asked for his name to be removed from
official info. As a matter of fact,
they’re totally closing it at the end of June to take the summer to finish
things for the 2015-2016 concert season (and moving previously-scheduled summer
concerts elsewhere).
BUT OH, MY GOODNESS, IS IT WONDERFUL! My spirit soared as
I viewed its gorgeous lines and soaring up-sweeping curves as I walked towards
it from the south. The two-story
escalator swept me from the ground level up to the first landing/entrance from
the eastern ramp (although the escalator stopped just a few steps from the top –
eek – glad I wasn’t further down!). A
shorter escalator then went up to the main entrance and multiple terraces. There's a huge triangular staircase to the south of the escalator entrance that can serve as seating for outdoor performances on the pavement. The
shapes of the exterior’s assorted tiles that, when combined, look like birds in
flight, were repeated on the paving and the terrace facings.
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| My entrance |
When I finally found my entrance (after a couple wrong turns), the interior of the hall took even more of my breath away. It’s unlike any other hall in the world with its shape and cloud-like seating areas and adjustable panels. And I’m THRILLED to report that the acousticians did a fabulous job – the sound was warm, just-reverberant-enough, well-balanced, not seeming to favor any family of instruments. In addition to designing acoustics for unamplified orchestral & choral performances, the engineers installed a sound system for special needs and for other types of concerts. They used amplification for this afternoon’s guitarist, and my only gripe is that it was cranked up way too high – it distorted some of his sound and the quality of his sound clashed at times with the acoustic sound coming from the orchestra. The Philharmonie also has a pipe organ – wow – I’d love to hear that some day!
Here's a video of British conductor Sir Simon Rattle talking about the marvelous acoustics in the hall: "Lucky Paris"
(P.S. to my musician friends - if you know someone in the Orchestre de Paris, I'd love hear their opinions on the quality of the acoustics on the stage. It seemed to me like the musicians could hear each other well (something I don't think was always true at Salle Pleyel).
Here's the view from my seat.
This concert of South & Latin American music appeared
to be sold out – just a few empty seats here and there. All ages were represented, children (about
age 6 and up) to oldsters with canes!
Quite a good percentage of 20-somethings. But mostly whites and Asians. I saw one
scalper outside (BTW, one of my goals in life is to see scalpers outside every MN
Orchestra concert!).
I gotta pull up their 2015-2016 season info to see when I can squeeze
in another trip and another concert or two!
For a variety of reasons, I took an Uber ride up to the
concert. We experienced traffic jams in
several locations. And this was a relatively calm Sunday afternoon – a weeknight
would be a huge mess!
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| Anyone need a ticket??? |
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| The Philharmonie, viewed from the Tram station |
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| The eastern pedestrian ramp |
It’s not every day that one’s impatient and eager (and
downright obsessive) anticipation turns out even better than what one
imagined. But this was one of those
days! So I guess that I’ll just have to
keep on obsessing!
Here are just a few more miscellaneous photos:
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| Interior hallway |
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| "The Hulk!" - my shadow selfie on the terrace |
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| Main entrance from the level 2 terrace |
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| The token they give you as you head out to intermission (to prevent second-half freeloaders!) - you give it back to the usher on your way back into the buiding |
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| The token flip side |
For more info: http://philharmoniedeparis.fr/en
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