Tobias Kratzer & Bjarke Ingels
An Opera House
for Everyone
Tobias Kratzer & Bjarke Ingels
An Opera House
for Everyone
It is still only a vision at this point: a new opera house and public park at Hamburg’s HafenCity on the Baakenhöft peninsula. In an international architectural competition, the Kühne Foundation and the city of Hamburg selected the design from the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The renderings show a sequence of terraces shaped by coastal vegetation, creating the impression of gentle ripples – “ripples of sound emanating from the stage,” says Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director of BIG. Large overhangs and the careful orientation of openings are designed to create wind breaks, ensuring that even in harsh weather the future site will remain welcoming. With its elegant, park-like surroundings, the building and landscape seem to flow into one another. “It will be hard to discriminate where the outside ends and the inside begins,” says Bjarke Ingels. The main auditorium picks up on the idea of ripples of sound, with its tubular timber sections that will line the walls and reinforce the idea of waves emanating from the stage.
Among the jury members who selected the design from BIG was Tobias Kratzer, Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera – an organization that the Kühne Foundation has supported for many years. As the person who will ultimately decide what happens on the stage, he was especially drawn to the building’s openness and accessibility. And that fits perfectly with how he sees the future of the opera: “As an art form that is open to everyone, not just to the traditional opera-goers.” Tobias Kratzer imagines programming that treats historic works as living material rather than museum pieces. It’s about making them relevant for the present – for example through collaborations that introduce contemporary perspectives. He also wants to expand the repertoire with new formats and chamber operas. All of this has the artistic director excited about the possibilities the house will offer. In the end, he takes a democratic approach to programming, giving equal artistic value to historical, contemporary, and experimental works.
The new Hamburg State Opera will be a place of that gives this approach a fitting framework – a place in which nature and architecture, and established masterpieces and bold innovations are brought together. Open to all, it welcomes opera fans – and those who come for the architecture and find their curiosity leading them into the auditorium.
“An art form that is open to everyone, not just to the traditional opera-goers.”
Artistic Director Tobias Kratzer
The Gift
Hamburg is to get a new opera house. It will be financed by the Kühne Foundation, while the City of Hamburg provides and prepares the Baakenhöft site and covers location‑specific costs. Once completed, the building will be transferred to the city as a gift and the Hamburg State Opera will move there from its current location.
Rahel Schöni
Dr Natalie Arnold, MD, and Cristian Riccio, PhD
Antonello De Marco