Elbphilharmonie

Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie fuses a red-brick warehouse from 1963 with a undulating glass superstructure designed by Basel-based architects Herzog & de Meuron to evoke sails, waves, or an iceberg. The project became one of postwar Germany's most contentious construction scandals: costs spiralled from an estimated 77 million euros to over 866 million, and the building didn't open until January 2017, years behind schedule. Its acoustic centerpiece, the 2,100-seat Grand Hall, was engineered by acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota using thousands of individually shaped plaster reflectors to give every seat an equal acoustic relationship with the stage. The public plaza at 37 meters is free to access without a concert ticket, offering a 360-degree panorama over the Elbe, the port, and the Hamburg skyline.

Herzog & de Meuron concert hall built on top of a 1960s cocoa warehouse, with a public plaza 37 m up.