Carl Bechstein Campus Read more

The traditional Berlin piano house is realizing a broadly effective urban attraction that enriches the newly created Europacity with its combination of past and modernity. The design translates the special nature of the task into a concise design and emphasizes the timeless quality associated with the Bechstein name a theme.
The new quarter continues the existing block structure, but breaks up its uniformity with a radiant concert building and differentiated, staggered public urban spaces that do justice to the special offerings of the Bechstein Campus. A forecourt at the entrance to the concert hall opens out into a deep town square, which offers an attractive recreational area protected from traffic and lined with stores and restaurants. The square is bordered by the historic H-building, which houses the Academy's event rooms and the Carl Bechstein Museum and provides a passageway to the green corridor to the west and to the Academy's rehearsal rooms and the apartments for scholarship holders. Green inner courtyards and terraces offer more private outdoor spaces.
The urban space is framed by the unified clinker brick buildings of the campus, which shape the timeless character of the Bechstein Quarter and pick up on the theme of the industrial history of the manufactory and the location. The clear architectural language blends with the clinker brick and plaster façade of the existing building and the adjacent perimeter block buildings. Arches open up the first floor zone to the urban space. They widen to reveal the glazed entrances to the concert halls that lead visitors to the upper floor. The concert building emerges above the clinker base with a glass body, which is formed by the foyer zone extending over three floors. Its levels and open staircases resemble a stage that radiates into the urban space.
The campus functions were arranged according to their importance and their need for publicity and tranquillity. The instrument shop and the concert hall of the Carl Bechstein House are prominently located on the forecourt on Heidestrasse. The existing H-building with the Academy's event rooms and the instrument museum forms the end of the town square. The first floor zones are enlivened by stores and restaurants, while the office spaces are located on the upper floors benefiting from the good addresses on Heidestrasse, the town square and the green corridor. Rehearsal rooms and scholarship holders' apartments are located in the Academy courtyard and along the green corridor, protected from noise.