House of Music, Budapest | Hungary
20 februari
Project: House of Music, Budapest | Hungary
Architect: Sou Fujimoto Architects, Tokyo | Japan
Implementation: Magyar Építo Zrt., Budapest | Hungary
Façade System: Special Design
Year of Construction: 2022
Product: ALUCOBOND® PLUS spectra Desert Gold
Photos: György Palkó
ARCHITECTURE WITH ATMOSPHERE
People regularly try to transpose the spirituality, transient moods, deep emotions and atmospheric hues inherent in music into tangible architecture. This is bound to fail, but creating something approaching the ideal may succeed. Such a success story can be seen at the Budapest House of Music. Thanks, primarily, to the architects’ skill in catching and channelling natural light to endow the building with an ethereal spaciousness. They designed a circular glass pavilion on the ground floor, bordered by the steps of a small open air auditorium, merging trees and the structure with one another. Concerts take place, under the building’s overhanging roof comprising golden ALUCOBOND® leaves. This is where music connects with the world, and the building connects with its audience. Natural light penetrates deep into enclosed areas through deep golden sky-wells in the roof and through the glass façades, refracting again and again on the reflective surfaces. Transient linear shadows thrown by tree trunks and slender supports are almost impossible to tell apart. Although the roof curves upwards towards its edges and allows light to filter through as though by osmosis, (permeate through naturally) there is, in fact, an entire floor hidden above the golden foliage. This is where classrooms, seminar rooms, administrative offices and recording studios are located. The building’s total area is 9,000 m², but its dimensions are deceptive. The complex shapes and surfaces used in constructing the roof make it impossible to gauge. For example, long, narrow ALUCOBOND® panels are lined up within the narrow sky-wells, emphasizing their length. The natural light flowing in from above is repeatedly reflected in the burnished panels on the sides, letting a sunshine-gold tinted light percolate into the space below. The gold-coloured ALUCOBOND® panels on the underside of the roof create a permeable layer both inside and out; above them, the black metal mounting fixtures are discernible here and there; beyond this, however, the only thing visible is black nothingness. Or the grove of trees behind the glass façade. Or the sky above the skylights. Everywhere the eye wanders, it comes across mirror images and golden reflections. That, of course, is during the day. But, in the evening when the outside world disappears in darkness as the sun sets, the pavilion with its illuminated canopy of leaves begins to glow in a warm gold tone far into the night. Then the forest is radiantly festive.