ELBPHILHARMONIE HAMBURG

THE PROJECT AND ITS REQUIREMENT

Hamburg's 110-meter-tall Elbphilharmonie concert hall, which is prominently situated on the Elbe River, is a landmark, a cultural icon of the city, and a destination for music enthusiasts worldwide.
The building boasts three concert halls, restaurants, a hotel and exclusive condominiums as well as a multi-storey car park and conference rooms.
A curved single-skin glass façade consisting of individually shaped and reflective glass panels was installed atop the historic brick warehouse. The strikingly shaped roof, 6,000m² in size and with a weight of 8,000 tonnes, is supported by individually curved steel girders.

The technical implementation of the building concept posed a major challenge for the structural design and elastic decoupling.

THE SOLUTION

Various structural bearings, customised products and dynamic elastomer bearings have been used in this project to meet the requirements.

The glass façade, enclosed and supported by steel frames, needed thermal separation measures. A customised and elaborate special structure, based on the core compact bearing, was installed in the façade's steel structure to prevent energy losses.

Special elastic bearings with the bi-trapezoidal bearing provide acoustic decoupling of the stairs and eliminate the generation of impact sound.

Additional reinforced concrete piles were added to the foundations so that the historic plinth could support the heavy glass façade and roof. These ensure that the resulting loads are systematically transferred to load-bearing soil layers. Calenberg's CR 2000 elastomeric bearings, also used in the supporting structure of the roof, provided the required support.

This ensured that the Elbphilharmonie is still standing on solid ground and has no structural damage.