The day of the gala opening of his design for the Philharmonie de Paris, January 14, Jean Nouvel announced he would not attend. The building is not ready for orchestras, he said in a statement released by his office. “There were no acoustic tests in the concert hall. The schedule did not allow the architectural and technical requirements to be respected.” The 2,400-seat concert hall rises like a shiny iceberg of mottled metal and rippling polished stainless steel in the Parc de la Villette at the northeast corner of the city. But much of the exterior paneling had yet to be installed, and scaffolding was everywhere, including in the auditorium, as recently as yesterday.
It had seemed inconceivable that the promised January opening date would be achieved. The joint project of the French state and the city of Paris stuck to its schedule, however, and the Orchestre de Paris and other resident companies are presenting three days of gala concerts, even though the rushed opening flirts with disaster. (The project missed its original, unrealistic completion date of 2012, and should not be publicly inaugurated “peacefully and with dignity,” until fall, said Nouvel's statement.)
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