Maison symphonique de Montréal (2013)

[monctezuma]

PS: il faudra bientôt déplacer ce fil dans Complétés!

 

Dans La Presse, on mentionnait que la fin complète des travaux est prévue pour le 14 décembre 2011. Il reste encore beaucoup à faire

[H0/MAboy]

Je suis allé au portes ouvertes samedi moi aussi. je suis arrivé vers 13h. la file était déjà à l'extérieur. Je croyais que ce serait long avant de pénétrer dans l'édifice. Mais à ma grande surprise l'attente n'a pas été trop longue. Il ont commencé bien avant 14h (erreur dans la communication des heures ou devancement à cause de la foule?). Ils faisaient entrer le monde par groupe avec guide, jusqu'au hall. Par la suite j'ai compris qu'il y avait un concert de 15-20 minutes, histoire de donner un avant goût de l'acoustique de la salle. Moi aussi j'y été très impressionné. Je ne suis pas un spécialiste, mais même avec une prestation d'un duo (contrebasse et flûte traversière provenant du Saguenay) la musique nous enveloppait. Ce fût un très bon moment. Avant, un animateur nous a expliqué quelques détails techniques de la nouvelle salle. En tout ca, ça me donner le goût d'y entendre un orchestre complet.

[boluda]

Je peux juste juger du lobby/entrée (salle était fermée)...déception totale. Plafond bas, matériaux cheapette, et que dire de cette espèce d'entrée vers le métro avec les lumières...ish. Pas ben ben plus beau que l'entrée d'une école secondaire...et même là, l'entrée de mon école secondaire/CEGEP était pas mal plus impressionnante. Ceux qui critiquaient l'extérieur de la salle seront bien déçus en y entrant. Au moins la salle de concert est belle?

 

Attendons voir la fin des travaux...I guess...

[LaRonde]

Davidbourque,

 

Si tu parlais de l'épisode sur Découverte qui portait sur la Maison symphonique de Montréal, voici le bon lien

 

http://www.tou.tv/decouverte/S2011E01

Modifié 12 septembre 2011 par LaRonde

[Davidbourque]

Merci

 

J'avoue que je ne l'ai pas testé étant au bureau

[cjb]

Un article assez critique sur Bloomberg.

 

For $261 Million Montreal Hall Has Quebec Beech, Bland Shell: Architecture

By James S. Russell - Sep 13, 2011 12:01 AM GMT-0400

 

Unfinished walls and raw-wood handrails greeted patrons at the new home of the Montreal Symphony on the evening of its inaugural concert last week. At least the auditorium was ready for its big night -- barely.

 

The stakes were high. Beyond the estimated $261 million cost (C$259 million), a poor opening night can be disastrous.

 

Think of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, which opened with a garish gala and before the complicated adjustable acoustics were ready. The misfire contributed to the image problems and financial distress of one of America’s greatest orchestras.

 

La Maison Symphonique de Montreal is a Kimmel descendant. The same theater-planning and acoustical firm, Manhattan-based Artec, largely dictated the shape of both venues.

 

Rather than collaborate with the architect, Toronto-based Diamond and Schmitt, Artec insisted on handing in a fully developed design for the room and its acoustics. Principal Jack Diamond hired his own acoustician, Robert Essert, of London- based Sound Space, who made adjustments.

 

It will be months before the true character of the hall reveals itself. The tunable elements comprise nine wavelike white panels hanging from the ceiling that can be raised and lowered.

 

That’s far fewer than Kimmel, yet there has been almost no time to fiddle with them.

 

The idea is for the orchestra to choose configurations appropriate to, say, a Baroque piece or Mahler.

 

Music Director Kent Nagano showed off the hall’s dynamics with three pieces by Quebec composers and Beethoven’s Ninth. Whispered flute notes floated in “Envol: Alleluia,” composed by Gilles Tremblay. In the burnished and enveloping grandeur of the Beethoven, the room helped the music bloom.

Restrained Informality

 

Gently undulating walls of honey-colored Quebec beech taper inward to wrap the broad stage of the 2,100-seat auditorium. Three rear balconies rise above the orchestra to push those seats much closer to the stage than a more conventional so- called shoebox hall, like Boston’s, does.

 

The side walls are scalloped with narrow balconies that bow outward, extending them along both sides of the stage.

 

There’s no gilt proscenium scribed with curlicues so the stage feels nestled within the audience.

 

Though Frank Gehry’s spectacular Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles builds anticipation in a way Montreal’s room fails to do, Diamond’s restraint pays off in an informality that invites the audience to listen. He avoids the glitzy chandeliers and lugubrious velvet that suggest elderly eras replete with fur-stoled dowagers.

Concrete Bunkers

 

Outside, Diamond beckons passersby with a vitrine that showcases patrons milling on four tiers of lobbies wrapped in glass. But the bland building shrinks in the face of the assertive mediocrity of its neighboring concrete bunkers, the bombastic Place des Arts collection of culture palaces.

 

With an unassuming entrance on St. Urbain, a side street, the hall at least opens the Place des Arts to a lively entertainment district that has grown around it. You can follow your Mozart with a jazz-club chaser.

 

To avoid delays and cost overruns, the Quebec government handed off most of the design and all construction, financing and management of the building to a consortium called SNC- Lavalin Group Inc.

 

I’m skeptical of buying architectural apples and financial oranges in one big package. If the proposed cost looks good while the architecture is only so-so, guess what wins.

 

So I am left wondering if the building’s underpowered urban presence may be one of the tradeoffs accepted to make the whole package work. Artec was so concerned about maintaining the integrity of its design that it insisted on not being part of the consortium.

 

Arts organizations, starved for building-project cash, will watch this privatized-management idea closely.

 

(James S. Russell writes on architecture for Muse, the arts and culture section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own. Island Press recently pubblished his book, “The Agile City.”)

 

To contact the writer of this column: James S. Russell in New York at jamesrussell@earthlink.net. http://web.me.com/jscanlonrussell

 

To contact the editor responsible for this column: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-13/for-261-million-montreal-hall-has-quebec-beech-bland-shell-architecture.html

Modifié 13 septembre 2011 par monctezuma

[MtlMan]

Les critiques sont trop habitués à attendre une autre forme géométrique éclatée pour dire "c'est beau".

 

Le "bland" d'aujourd'hui sera peut-être le chef-d'oeuvre de demain. Bien sûr, le Guggenheim de Bilbao est déjà éternel, mais comme on l'a vu avec les salle de Reykjavik et Helsinki, la "quirkiness" des formes et des textures ne fait pas automatiquement des chef-d'oeuvres, encore moins des endroits invitants (ce qui devrait être l'une des principales qualités d'un immeuble à "visiter" et "regarder"). Plusieurs trucs de ce genre vont mal vieillir, alors que je prédit que la Maison Symphonique demeurera visuellement attachante et agréable pour très longtemps.

[monctezuma]

La mentalité qui règne au Québec est très bien résumée dans cette ligne:

 

"If the proposed cost looks good while the architecture is only so-so, guess what wins."

[Gbx]

Les critiques sont trop habitués à attendre une autre forme géométrique éclatée pour dire "c'est beau".

 

Le "bland" d'aujourd'hui sera peut-être le chef-d'oeuvre de demain. Bien sûr, le Guggenheim de Bilbao est déjà éternel, mais comme on l'a vu avec les salle de Reykjavik et Helsinki, la "quirkiness" des formes et des textures ne fait pas automatiquement des chef-d'oeuvres, encore moins des endroits invitants (ce qui devrait être l'une des principales qualités d'un immeuble à "visiter" et "regarder"). Plusieurs trucs de ce genre vont mal vieillir, alors que je prédit que la Maison Symphonique demeurera visuellement attachante et agréable pour très longtemps.

 

Je rejoins bien sûr ton point de vue. De plus, il me semble le temps encore très prématuré pour porter un jugement sur l'extérieur de l'édifice alors que la finition n'est même pas encore terminée et nous savons tous ici quelle difference celle-ci peut faire au niveau de l'intégration et de l'impact visuel d'un immeuble. Plus fondamentalement, j'ai toujours pensé que la qualité architecturale est plus liée a la qualité de l'expérience que l'on tire d'un espace que de son "look". Nous verons bien ce que donnera cette salle, mais le grand succès du 4 seasons center a Toronto a cet égard nous laisse espérer de bonnes choses.

 

Il est aussi une fois encore assez désolant de voir fois les médias ne se borner qu'a exacerber les critiques négatives. On a l'impression le cynisme est une marque obligée dans certains journaux montréalais. J'ai aussi l'impression que certains se bornent par ce biais a y faire encore le sempiternal "procès" moral des PPP que de considérer ce bâtiment pour ce qu'il est. Et madame Bisonette de jetter son fiel pendant qu'on pouvait lire dans l'éditorial du World Architecture News:

 

Jack Diamond on the making of a world-class concert hall

 

From the time he won the competition to design the new concert hall for the OSM, architect Jack Diamond knew exactly what the building needed to be. A good concert hall for an esteemed company that has long endured performing in a place with less than ideal acoustics, a good urban building that is highly legible and has good public access, and an architectural landmark.

 

“Located on the Place des Arts, the pre-eminent central square of cultural activity in the Quartier des Spectacles in downtown Montreal where it will join four other cultural buildings, the prevailing attitude in the 1970s when these buildings were built was to put them on podiums, said Diamond, “as this was consistent with the notion of “culture on a pedestal”. But “times have changed”, said Diamond, and in designing this building, Diamond chose instead to engage the concert hall with the city and to make it more accessible. As a result, “the building has the dual characteristic of being both on a podium and on the Place des Arts (the street)” where it enjoys good public visibility and excellent access to public transportation.

 

Beyond these characteristics, Diamond made a grand urban gesture in siting the building at the terminus of the cultural complex where it closes off the street (much in the same way that Garnier’s Paris Opera House and the Arch de Triumph do) making it ever more prominent within the complex and the larger cityscape. Building on this prime location, Diamond made the concert hall highly transparent with floor to ceiling glass, thus creating a place where one can see and be seen while also imparting a sense of dynamism and excitement to the building. But first and foremost the OSM was designed to be a world class concert hall with state of the art acoustics provided by Artec. While the emphasis is to be big on sound, the hall itself is designed to have an intimate feel, with the space from the stage to the last row of seats being just 75 feet.

 

In terms of the design of concert hall itself, which seats 1,900, “its DNA is that of a typical shoebox concert hall with a contemporary take”, said Diamond. “The way it differs from the others is that we get the high, middle and low ranges by shaping the walls in series of scallops…in the middle by inserts that run horizontally… and in the high frequency by the use of horizontal wood panels, which vary in texture from a sandpaper like finish to very smooth.

 

Diamond is hoping the concert hall will rise to the level of the really great halls, which “you can count on two hands”, he said. “The 19th century standard bearer is Munich and the 20th century is Kleinburg”. The building is faced with a honey colour Quebec beech that glows a warm gold. The $259m (CAN) building is slated to open on September 7, 2011.

 

Sharon McHugh

US Correspondent

 

http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=17307

 

Et sur Artdaily.org:

 

Montreal Concert Hall designed by Diamond and Schmitt Architects opens to the public

 

 

Diamond and Schmitt Architects with Aedifica Architects, and a team of acousticians and consultants reinterpret the rectangular shoe-box.

 

 

TORONTO.- Music lovers rejoice. Montreal has a new sound: a concert hall for our times where musical expression can be seen and heard in comfort and style. The Montreal Concert Hall adds a new dimension to the city’s dynamic cultural identity and completes the downtown arts complex, Place des Arts, with an inviting and engaging structure that is every bit a part of the life around it.

 

Diamond and Schmitt Architects with Aedifica Architects, and a team of acousticians and consultants reinterpret the rectangular ‘shoe-box’ theatre configuration with an intimate three-balcony, 1900-seat auditorium designed principally for symphonic use. The new home of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and other arts groups is an initiative of the Quebec Government and developed by Groupe immobilier Ovation, a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin.

 

Lead architect Jack Diamond creates a dynamic sense of occasion for the concert going experience. The hall is accessible from the street, from the plaza as well as the subway, and beckons with a double-height reception room, side lobbies and a strong visual sense of the activity within through extensive glazed curtainwall.

 

“This transparency both respects the prime position of the hall at the terminus of a major artery and anticipates the contrast of entering the opaque auditorium,” says Diamond, Principal with Diamond and Schmitt Architects, whose portfolio of international performing arts projects includes the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto and the Mariinsky Theatre now underway in St. Petersburg, Russia.

 

The building expresses a reverence for sound where the gentle overlapping curves of the auditorium’s wood-lined walls extend above the roofline to reveal the same sculpted forms that shape the very musical dimension of the hall. “There is nothing arbitrary about the design; it is a true display of the architecture of sound,” says Diamond.

 

Design excellence extends to the details that ensure audience comfort, clear sightlines and supreme acoustics. The hall is a soundproof ‘box-within-a-box’ that is separated from the surrounding public lobbies and rehearsal rooms and rests on rubber and steel pads that inhibit unwanted vibration and noise from entering the room.

 

“It’s all about the musical experience,” adds Matthew Lella, Project Architect with Diamond and Schmitt. “A monochromatic palette of colours creates a calm, cohesive and elegant environment in the hall to draw the audience’s attention to natural, unamplified performances.”

 

Mr. Diamond, in collaboration with Aedifica and Cassavant Fréres, designed the striking array of organ pipes that grace the wall behind the stage. The result is a bold, confident composition, an asymmetry of exuberant diagonals, which – like the concert hall itself – is a contemporary expression of the fundamental forms that have served the best concert halls the world over.

 

http://www.designscene.net/2011/08/diamond-schimitt-architects.html

 

Archiscene parle de la salle en ces termes:

 

Montreal gets an outstanding new design set to house their Symphony Orchestra from the Canada based architecture firm Diamond and Schimitt Architects.

 

http://www.designscene.net/2011/08/diamond-schimitt-architects.html

 

On a vu pire, pour un "boxy, boring, bland design".

Modifié 14 septembre 2011 par Gbx

[steve_36]

Moi je le trouve très bien notre nouvelle salle mais j'avoue qu'il est difficile de dire ''wow'' en la regardant surtout parce que la salle Maisonneuve, juste à coté et dans le champ de vision, empeche la nouvelle salle de respirer et d'etre mise en valeur. Le jour ou la salle Maisonneuve aura un autre enveloppe alors peut-etre que nous pourrons alors dire ''wow''. Je suis d'accord avec le New York times lorsqu'il semble ''dénigrer'' la rue St-Urbain (''a side street''). Encore une fois, si la salle Maisonneuve améliore sa facade est en l'ouvrant davantage sur la rue Jeanne-Mance alors ça serait une tout autre histoire.

Les deux édifices sont tellement proches l'une de l'autre qu'il est presque impossible de juger la nouvelle salle sans etre choqué par la Maisonneuve.

Modifié 15 septembre 2011 par steve_36