Stockholm Concert Hall

The Stockholm Concert hall, opened in 1926, is one of our best known creations. It was designed by no other than Ivar Tengbom, one of the pioneers of Swedish architecture. Through the years, we have returned to the Concert hall on several occasions to take care of Ivar’s legacy and make sure that the building may be experienced by many visitors from new generations. 

On April 4 1920, a competition was announced in the journal Arkitekten for the design of Stockholm Concert hall. At the time of the announcement, Ivar Tengbom together with two other architects, Torben Grut and Lallerstedt, had already received a special invitation from the Concert hall committee.

Ivar threw himself into his competition entry in partnership with his assistant Birger Jonson. He later highlighted Birger’s contribution and meant that ever since the first tentative sketches of the competition entry, he had provided ‘invaluable support during the planning and execution of the project’. Our partnership is crucial for the architecture that we create even today – which is why we are so very happy about this. That this is a tradition that goes all the way back to when Tengbom was founded.

The red heart

The competition entry ‘The red heart’ was based on the Greek and Roman theatre. The design of the great concert hall was a deciding factor in the competition and according to Ivar, it became the core from which the entire building was created around. When Ivar imagined the hall as a Roman courtyard, a peaceful festive area where the parquet is framed by stands with slender columns. Behind the podium – the room’s focal point – he saw a false perspective that implied a continuation towards the imagined Greek landscape. Above this, the white ceiling opened up like a sky from which the lighting would give the feeling of an eternal, mild sunshine.

”The hall itself wants to invite you into the atmosphere and peace, ’au-dessus de la mêlé’, that we, busy people are looking for”

– Ivar Tengbom.

Outside, there was a decorative row of columns as a portal between the outer and the inner room – a reflection of the great hall’s ancient character. For the rest, Ivar Tengbom distributed the program within a strictly coherent, cubic and undecorated concrete block. A contemporary approach which the curator of the National Museum at the time, Erik Wettergren, described at the opening ceremony later as ‘the new architecture’s hallmark’. In the proposal, Ivar Tengbom gave his Stockholm Concert hall an unusual blueish façade.

The description that accompanied our entry was written by hand and full of exciting, rhetorical expressions. In several places Ivar Tengbom talks directly to the jury to explain his thoughts. He appears to have had a sense of humour, our Ivar – when defending the columns on the exterior, he says: ”The judge is asking, columns, what are you doing?”. The press preferred the end quote which was often repeated with glee:

”And now, Mr Executioner, do your duty!”

A symbol for the future

Thirty four proposals were submitted to the jury. At the beginning, first prize was actually awarded both to The red heart and Erik Lallerstedt’s proposal The Wings. After an intensive process and development of the original proposal, we finally completed the planning and were able to turn Ivar’s vision into reality.

In retrospect, Stockholm’s Concert hall became a distillation of different currents in the Swedish architecture debate from the beginning of the 1900s.

The interest in town construction issues, the importance of a rational approach to the materials and construction, and the desire to once again unite the architecture and the liberal arts, all played a part in the end result. As a public building, the Concert Hall became a symbol of the cultural intentions of the Swedish society alongside the development of the modern civilization.

Stockholm Concert Hall full of invaluable art treasures

A very important aspect of the Concert hall is the many works of art that can be found both inside and outside the building – such as Carl Milles’ famous sculpture of the Orpheus Group by the stairs to Hötorget, and Isaac Grünewald’s incredible ceiling and wall paintings in the Grünewald Hall. Read more about the art around the building at Concert Hall’s website.

New generations take over

Through the years, we have returned to look after Ivar’s legacy and make sure that it lives on and can be experienced by many new generations of visitors. At the beginning of the 1970s, Ivar’s son, Anders Tengbom, carried out a great renovation and development of the house. Thus, the wall behind the podium was rebuilt, to eventually give way to a magnificent concert hall organ. The ceiling was painted in a dark colour to make way for new technology and acoustic aids – and is now meant to make us think of a dark night in the Mediterranean. When the exterior of the Concert Hall had been restored, the local population were once again fascinated by the bold original blue colour, which had been forgotten after many years of pollution

Historic buildings must continuously be checked not least to meet changing requirements for accessibility and to be customized with new technology and functionality. In recent years, we have been assisting with new installations and improved acoustics. We have also designed a new rehearsal hall, the Aulin hall with flexible seating areas.