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Architects: Vécsey Schmidt Architekten
- Area: 2409 m²
- Year: 2024
Text description provided by the architects. From provisional tent to permanent concert club: the new Kuppel Basel is an impressive venue for the music scene. Basel-based Vécsey Schmidt Architekt:innen built a permanent concert venue for the city's pop music scene – right in the middle of an idyllic park on the edge of the city center. The shape of the Kuppel Basel refers to a temporary dome tent from 1988 that stood on the same location, and which was known far and wide for the concerts that were held there. The new, permanent institution will help to promote upcoming bands and provide a venue for concerts and parties. An unconventional piece of architecture, that is focussed entirely on its interior and at the same time – together with a neighboring extension building – solves urban planning questions. Club scene concerts are often held in dark basements or abandoned industrial estates, where they don't bother anybody. Not so in Basel: here pop culture has now acquired a jewel, located right in the middle of a park between the zoo and the city center. Any passer-by who does not know about the function of the solitary octagonal building with its unusual vaulted structure might mistake it for some sort of pavilion – if it weren't so hermetically sealed. Thanks to sophisticated soundproofing measures, the beats inside can be cranked up, while on the outside people going for a stroll or neighbors sleeping with open windows remain undisturbed.
Until a couple of years ago, the "Nachtigallenwäldeli" (which translates to nightingale-wood) green area was a largely neglected, 300 m long strip of land between the Binningerstrasse and the Birsig river, each end spanned by a mighty viaduct. For some 30 years, this was the location of the popular and legendary "Kuppel". Before this tent was dismantled during the area's regeneration scheme of 2016, in which it was deemed to be a foreign provisional object, a non-profit foundation was established to support the construction and run of a new concert venue for the music scene. The local government supported the project by cofinancing the eight band rehearsal areas in the basement of the new building. The competition which was finally called in 2019, was won by the Basel-based architecture bureau Vécsey Schmidt Architekt:innen. In the future, two to three concerts with pop music in all its varieties or parties will take place here every week from September to May.
Form and function - The cupola design of the concert club is consciously based on its longingly missed predecessor. The green supporting steel structure of the free-standing octagon is reminiscent of a 19th-century pavilion, but appears more industrial than delicate, especially as the sides are filled in with simple brickwork. The cupola is not a dome as such but rather made up of four intersecting barrel vaults. Within the roundels of these sections are the building's only windows, pink-glazed oculi of various sizes. The unconventional shape of the solitary structure, which from some angles looks like a sacred edifice, emphasizes that it must be something special – and domed buildings are traditionally intended for exclusive or special purposes, or structures with large internal spans such as the city's market hall or university library. The new Kuppel Basel can accommodate up to 600 people. The ground floor of the elongated octagon provides access to the foyer and bar, before leading up two stairs to the first floor and the pulsating heart, the live concert hall with its stage. Here the view opens up to the domed concrete ceiling. Surrounding this central, cross-vaulted concert hall are all the other rooms of the building, which stage this space even more. More stairs lead to an irregularly shaped cantilevered gallery. The audience can circulate and move freely using these stairs of irregular width that surround the concert hall; there are no dead ends. Keeping the interior walls in dark colors supports the spatial effect. They change almost imperceptibly from dark green in the foyer area to midnight blue in the concert hall itself. The backstage spaces with the artists' dressing rooms behind the gallery are, in contrast, held in a warm, more comforting, and inspiring dark red.
Sound and space - Besides creating this almost overwhelming spatial atmosphere of the dome, the construction, material choices, and spatial geometries are aimed at optimizing the acoustics and sound insulation. The different profiles and arches – the concave, blended barrel vaults of the dome, and the gallery with its convex, timber-clad parapets – are designed to diffuse sound in a variety of ways. The walls with their differently perforated wooden panels and the insulation behind them, on the other hand, absorb it. In order to prevent noise from escaping the building, all points of contact that could pass on vibrations had to be avoided. This resulted in a house-in-house construction. The massive concrete dome received an external shell made from prefabricated timber elements. In the basement are eight band rehearsal areas that, thanks to room-in-room construction, can all be played at the same time without disturbing each other, even while up above live concerts pump up the bass and get the dancefloor shaking. The shallow vault shape is, among other things, the result of the boundary conditions that prescribe a maximum building height of 12 meters, while at the same time optimizing the use of the available space – and many calculations in cooperation with ZPF Ingenieure. This resulted in an elliptical cross-vault ceiling with blended barrel vaults. The elongated octagonal floor plan leads to the vaults each having to bear different loads and forces without counteracting one another, as would be the case in a regularly shaped dome. For static, acoustic, and cost reasons in-situ concrete was chosen for the inner roof, which remains unfinished and visible.
Dome and pitched roof - During the construction phase a decision was taken by the clients to add a second building. The so-called Volume 3 is an elongated structure along the Binningerstrasse that not only shields the Kuppel from traffic noises but also provides additional functions serving the dome: concert and event offices, restaurants, parts of the facility services and the obligatory solar panels installed on the pitched roof have all been relocated to this building. It also features another music club, this one without a stage, that can hold an audience of up to 180 people. Visitors will perceive the two buildings as separated from each other, but the basements are spatially and technically connected, allowing for the best use of synergies. Underground and established - Just as the pop music scene oscillates between underground and popular, between subversive and mainstream, so did the architects by playing with contrasts and contradictions: traditional shapes and the breaks with them; with the concept of a lasting, carefully designed structure and the reference to its provisional predecessor; with sophisticated engineering and equipment and the roughness of the materials. The new Kuppel Basel has an air of sacredness about it, something holy like a pantheon, a temple, or a church, while at the same time, it ties in with the industrial heritage of the surrounding environment, as this was once the site of the Basel Gas Works. However, it also represents a new beginning. The new Kuppel Basel is therefore part of the history and future of this culture and expresses its essence and nature.
