Objectives

Bamberg’s Concert and Congress Centre, known as the "Konzerthalle Bamberg", was built by the city in 1989-93, to a design drawn up in 1988 by the Architekts Rollenhagen and Großmann; it was inaugurated in autumn 1993. Most of the construction costs were met from subsidies provided by the Free State of Bavaria (contributing 60%) and the Foundation of Upper Franconia (a fixed contribution of DM 5 million); the rest came from municipal funds.

The Centre remains the property of the city of Bamberg. Its largest hall, the Joseph-Keilberth-Saal, seats just under 1,400 and serves primarily as the permanent home of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Bavarian State Philharmonic. The terms of the subsidies give the Orchestra first and unrestricted call on the hall for rehearsals and concerts, as well as for its extensive programme of recordings made in co-production with Bavarian Radio.

The hall itself can claim quite a share of the credit for the sustained artistic growth enjoyed by the Orchestra since occupying its new home, initially under the artistic direction and stewardship of the then Chief Conductor, the late Horst Stein, and since 2000 under his successor, the British-born Jonathan Nott. During that time the "Bambergers" have become an ever more regular and indispensable presence on the international concert scene, appearing in the world’s great halls and festivals. Each season they give some 40 public concerts in Bamberg, principally the annual subscription series but also organ concerts and special events, as well as the "Bamberg Summer Nights", a non-subscription, summer series of concerts open to all and held in Bamberg and the surrounding region.

Since the new hall’s inaugural season in 1993/94, attendance in Bamberg has doubled. The Orchestra’s former home, the 1,000-seat Dominikanerbau, could accommodate only three subscription series; now Bamberg boasts five series and a total of 6,000 subscribers, out of a population of 70,000. Last season, attendance at all concerts, subscription and open, topped 98%.

But the huge success enjoyed by the Orchestra in its new home has completely passed by the hall itself for a long time. It’s not so much visible signs of wear, 16 years after it was opened, which have made improvements seem advisable; the problem lay in the assumptions made twenty years ago, during the original planning phase of the mid- to late 1980s, and in the foyer, which was uncomfortably cramped and was not designed for today’s sustained high attendance and did not, in fact could not, offer concert-goers a visual and spatial environment commensurate with the artistic experience awaiting them in the hall. In addition, a long time the plaza in front of the Centre had never been landscaped but merely sealed with "water-bound tarmac"; nor was the surrounding area shaped by any discernible design.

After producing his colour concept for the hall and foyer, the internationally renowned Hamburg-based designer Professor Peter Schmidt has gone on to develop a more ambitious vision for enlarging the foyer and landscaping the site of the Centre to bring substantial improvements both to the Centre as a whole, including both hall and foyer, and to the external plaza and approaches, making the project a significant contribution to Bamberg’s civic space. this has been realised by Bamberg architects Mietusch und Partner as well as Rebhan architects and Ioma landscape architects (since 2010 JOMA landscape architects).

To extend the foyer, two new, separate structures were erected in front of the existing building; this building work has been planned so as to allow the Centre to continue in normal, undisturbed use, before the landscaping of the external plaza began in early summer 2009. The work began in late January 2009 and our aim was to reopen after the summer break and resume business as usual for the start of 2009/10 season, i.e. in mid-September 2009.

Still, the works on the Joseph-Keilberth-Saal required 12 solid weeks, during which the hall was not available for any rehearsals, concerts or recordings. A good 2 months were needed to connect the new foyer structures to the existing foyer areas, meaning that no public events could be held and no public access to the foyer.

The redevelopment cost €6.3 million net, of which a third, €2.1 million, was underwritten by the Free State of Bavaria, which also provided some 80.3% of the orchestra’s funding. The Foundation of Upper Franconia contributed another third; and the city of Bamberg, as owner of the Concert and Congress Centre, found the final €2.1 million, which it would have had to pay in any case: after 16 years of intensive use, its asset was in line for renovation and the resurfacing of the plaza was long overdue.