Bavarian State Government Confirms New Concert Hall in Munich

Though the hall’s construction has been planned since 2016, the government has approved a redesign aiming to be completed by 2036

Up until recently, the Bavarian state government’s designs for a new concert hall in Munich’s Werksviertel for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) were paused for financial reasons. New plans have now been approved and the hall will be redesigned. 

“The concert hall is coming, but a billion-euro project will become a million-euro project,” said Prime Minister Markus Söder after the meeting of the Council of Ministers. “We want to do a completely new plan instead of a re-planning. We have reduced the extras a bit. There will be less of the trimming.”

According to BR24 News, the Minister of Arts Markus Blume explained that the new plan is to “concentrate on the essentials” with no compromises. 

“The heart of the project is an excellent concert hall,” Blume said. “There will be a large concert hall for 1,900 people — with sufficient capacity, with the ability to accommodate a wide variety of orchestras, for the diversity of the entire music landscape of the Free State of Bavaria.”

Initially, a second, smaller hall was in the works, but its plans have since been dropped. Office and storage spaces will be reduced as will the size of the underground car park. 

The new building will be around a third smaller than the previous plan, which was estimated to cost $1.3 billion. The new plan aims to cost half as much, and will be undertaken by a single contractor, which Blume hopes will provide “high planning and, above all, high cost certainty.”

The previous plans have since cost taxpayers in the Free State significantly — according to the Konzerthaus Foundation, this amount had amounted to 27 million euros by 2022, reported the Nürnberger Nachrichten. 

“Not everything that was dreamed of many years ago can be implemented exactly,” Söder explained. Blume further stressed that “A project of this size is not responsible in these times.”

“It is really good news that the concert hall project is now making great strides forward — for the music world in Bavaria, the numerous supporters and of course also for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra,” commented BR’s director Katja Wildermuth.

“How wonderful that the concert hall that has been planned for a long time is now finally being realized,” said conductor Sir Simon Rattle, who has been head of the BR Symphony Orchestra since the current season, BSZ reports. “We all see the many challenges of our time. But the prospect of a house for music in the 21st century — with excellent acoustics as well as technological equipment that does justice to the world of today and tomorrow — makes me optimistic. We will help where we can: so that the Presto — and not Andante — project progresses.”