A warehouse on Hamburg’s waterfront is being transformed into the Elbe Philharmonic Hall, the architectural equivalent of Greta Garbo or a pirate ship—take your pick of these analogies, the former offered by future tenant Christoph von Dohnányi, chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra, and the latter by architect Jaques Herzog, of Herzog & de Meuron.
As contradictory as they might seem, both analogies are apt. Von Dohnányi says that the design, like the famously shy film star, “is very beautiful, but it doesn’t show off.” For his part, Herzog explains that his glass-clad addition, with its wavy sail-like roof, commandeers the fortress-like masonry warehouse and more than doubles its size to dominate a low-profile skyline.
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