The innovative 2,400 seat concert hall wraps the audience around the stage and features suspended balconies inside a larger volume, attached to the building by access passages, allowing sound to circulate completely around them. 

Marshall Day Acoustics teamed with 2008 Pritzker Prize winning French Architect, Jean Nouvel, were selected ahead of 97 international design teams in a two-stage competition.

The new building for the Philharmonie de Paris has been in the city of Paris planning pipeline for 20 years.  The 20,000 square metre facility includes one major concert hall space, two medium sized rehearsal rooms, several smaller practice rooms, a foyer, cafe and library.  It will be constructed at the 50 hectare cultural park at La Villette in north-east Paris.

The 40 page design brief includes a long list of acoustic requirements, reflecting the fact that something very special was required for this building.  The form of the building was specifically not allowed to follow conventional concert hall shapes in the form of a shoebox or vineyard - a completely new concept was demanded.  The highly technical design brief included the requirement to provide 'high clarity with ample reverberation''; - two conventionally incompatible elements.

Marshall Day were highly influential in the design workshop that developed the 'Bi-cameral' solution to the brief. The highly innovative design paves new ground in exceptional architecture and exceptional acoustics.

Marshall Day are engaged to provide the acoustical design of the auditorium for this project and the theatre designer is a French firm.

Harold Marshall and Chris Day were directly involved in the conceptual design workshops and have continued on in the design process.  Joanne Valentine and Thomas Scelo have carried out extensive computer design and modelling for the project.  The project timeframe is relatively tight for a project of this size and complexity with the detailed design phase due for completion in May 2008 and construction commencing late 2008.

For more information, visit the official Philharmonie de Paris website.