Culture and stealth: Festival Hall Erl, Tyrol Austria by Delugan Meissl Associated Architects.

Photos: Brigida – Gonzalez.

The Passionspielhaus is a summer opera and music venue set in the beautiful mountains of the Tyrol. Since the 1950s it has provided a quaint summer venue for a large part of the Tyrol Festiva, a summer cultural festival. The institution has become much-loved but recently, Delugan Meissl Associated Architects were invited to create a winter venue to compliment the summer facilities.

Flashing from the jagged landscape, they have created a black, ominous – looking object of a building that threatens to deliver a precision-guided cultural program that will create shock and awe. The drama aims to culturally illuminate the sleepy Austrian town throughout the long dark winter months.

The black faceted form and sweeping planes of the exterior, are contrasted with the white, bright foyer spaces. The transition suggests passing through a check-in to board an inter-stellar space craft.

But the concert hall itself presents a very different feeling. Clad in dark wood the fabulous space suggests the dark heart of a troubled genius. Simultaneously brilliant, yet terrifying. A space capable of visiting devastation upon the imagination of an audience unprepared for the intensity of the cultural experience.

The concert hall sits inert. Yet when the fuel of the performers and artists is added the intensity of what might result becomes apparent. Each performer, in the execution of his art, carries the grave responsibility of focussing the immense power of this wonderful architecture.

Gratitude to yatzer.