Shoebox principle

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Great hall of the Wiener Musikverein

The shoe box principle (also known as the barn principle ) is a design for concert halls developed in the 19th century based on the example of the old Leipzig Gewandhaus . The opposite is the so-called Weinberg principle.

features

With this type of construction, the length of the hall results from the addition of its width and height. The resulting cuboid is very similar to the proportions of a shoebox . The sound quality in “shoebox halls” is sometimes excellent, but the geometry of the room and the type of interior design also contribute to this. The rich decoration of the halls with pilasters and stucco , which is typical for the period of historicism , contributes significantly to the optimal dispersion of the sounds.

Use the shoebox principle found for example in the Musikverein in Vienna, the city casino music hall in Basel or at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (all before 1900), as well as in the 1929/1930 built Rudolf-Oetker-Halle in Bielefeld and Dortmund Concert Hall of 2002.

A survey of around 25 famous conductors in the 1950s resulted in the following ranking list for the best performance venue, in which four of the five best-rated halls were designed according to the shoebox principle:

  1. Musikvereinssaal in Vienna
  2. Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires
  3. Concertgebouw (Amsterdam)
  4. Boston Symphony Hall
  5. Gothenburg Concert Hall

Newer concert halls such as the New Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Philharmonie Berlin or the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg are often no longer built according to the shoebox principle. Today the architects work closely with room acousticians in order to achieve the good sound characteristics of the hall even with more complex room concepts.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Description of the concert hall in the Stadtcasino Basel. Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft , accessed December 15, 2014 .
  2. ↑ No cigar box . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1956, pp. 34–36 ( online - August 15, 1956 , article on the Stuttgarter Liederhalle ).
  3. ↑ How good sound gets into the concert hall. Die Welt , May 26, 2013, accessed December 15, 2014 .