Zaha Hadid Architects have built an installation at Manchester Art Gallery to house performances of music by Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
A translucent, fabric membrane stretched over a steel structure suspended from the ceiling divides and encloses the space, creating a stage, enclosure for the audience and passages into and out of the auditorium.
Clear, acrylic panels suspended above the stage reflect and disperse the sound.
Created for the Manchester International Festival, the venue hosts a series of concerts which started last Friday and continue until 18 July. Concert details are on the MIF website.
JS BACH / ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS CHAMBER MUSIC HALL AT MANCHESTER ART GALLERY FOR MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
Zaha Hadid Architects have created a unique chamber music hall specially designed to house solo performances of the exquisite music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
A voluminous ribbon swirls within the room, carving out a spatial and visual response to the intricate relationships of Bach’s harmonies. As the ribbon careens above the performer, cascades into the ground and wraps around the audience, the original room as a box is sculpted into fluid spaces swelling, merging, and slipping through one another.
“The design enhances the multiplicity of Bach’s work through a coherent integration of formal and structural logic. A single continuous ribbon of fabric swirls around itself, creating layered spaces to cocoon the performers and audience with in an intimate fluid space.” said Hadid.
