Mercatorhalle Duisburg

DUISBURG IS REVAMPING ITS IMAGE AND HAS BUILT ITS PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA A NEW CONCERT HALL IN THE CITY PALAIS. THE ACOUSTICS ARE IMPRESSING EVEN THE MOST SEASONED MUSICIANS.

A conspicuous number of people carrying instrument cases are strolling through the pedestrian zone in Duisburg in the early morning. They belong to the philharmonic orchestra and are on their way to a final rehearsal in the concert hall. Conductor and Musical Director Jonathan Darlington is the last to appear on stage, tapping his baton on the stainless steel railing. The 1,750 seats behind him are all empty except for one: Artistic Director Alfred Wendel wants to form his own impression of what is in store for listeners the following day: Ravel’s “Alborada del Gracioso” and Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony.

To make up for the lack of an audience to absorb the sound, Darlington has had the ceiling elements above the stage lowered. In the wedge-shaped side sections that jut out towards the stage there are rib segments whose function is to break the waves of sound. Even the seat coverings were chosen by acoustics experts: artificial leather, which absorbs the sound waves less than fabric. Argentine pianist Martha Argerich, who is considered to be extremely demanding, spontaneously exclaimed “breathtaking” on first hearing the hall’s acoustics.

It was in April 2007 that the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra first played in the new Mercatorhalle, its venue in the center of town. After a construction period of some two years, the CityPalais was completed. Located directly adjacent to the neoclassical theater and the imposing district court building, it comprises offices, restaurants, shops and a casino. However, the heart of the CityPalais is the Mercatorhalle: a concert and congress center that many see as embodying the new optimism in the city.

Originally built in the early sixties, the old Mercatorhalle was a grey box in danger of collapsing—a symbol of decline. For Duisburg, the obvious thing would have been to sell the hall and land to a private investor. Instead, the City Council asked the renowned architect Chapman Taylor for ideas for reviving the city center. With the support of the North-Rhine Westphalian Development Association (LEG), city authorities had the CityPalais built at a cost of some 150 million euros. The building contract went to Bilfinger Berger and a Duisburg partner.

DUISBURG WANTS TO ASSERT ITSELF
The Mercatorhalle, with its outstanding acoustics and diverse range of possible uses, is set to help Duisburg assert itself against the powerful competition of aspiring neighboring cities. Essen, Bochum and Düsseldorf are just a few kilometers away, therefore classic location factors, such as low tax rates and favorable real estate prices, are not enough to attract people and companies. In order to make its mark, Duisburg is relying on an image as a city of culture and congresses. The fact that such soft factors are gaining importance has been confirmed by comparable tendencies in London or New York and was also one of the key messages arising from the Bilfinger Berger Award. In England there is already a name for it: “culture-led regeneration”—culture as the driving force behind inner city revitalization.

FULL POWER!
“Beautiful, sehr schön,” the conductor calls out to his 93 musicians, adding: “Start the staccato a little more quietly and then with full power.” Jonathan Darlington talks a relaxed mixture of German and English. He’s not only a globetrotter when it comes to music, he’s somewhat of a global dynamo: in addition to his job in Duisburg, he is Principal Conductor of the Vancouver Opera and often conducts the Orchestre National de France in Paris and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague.“ During the very first rehearsals here I was knocked over by the acoustics,” says Darlington. “The place exceeds my wildest expectations. There’s a lot you can plan nowadays, but ultimately you can never completely avoid surprises. And the surprises have all been very positive.”

During the last few years, Duisburg has drawn attention to itself by turning the harbor area into a modern residential and office district with the involvement of Bilfinger Berger, as well as the conversion of a disused smelting works into a vast landscape park.With a population of over half a million, Germany’s eleventh largest city no longer wanted to be seen as the Cinderella of the Ruhr Valley.Unemployment figures are still high at around 14 percent, but the mood is beginning to turn: in the meantime, it is now considered “in” to come from Duisburg. The bars of the Innenhafen are bursting with people in the summer and the license plates of the cars parked there reveal that many even make the trip over from the chic city of Düsseldorf to enjoy a night out.

MORE HOTEL BOOKINGS
Hotel owners can also feel the city’s pulse quickening. After the opening of the City Palais with its multifunctional Mercatorhalle and the casino, they enjoyed a significant increase in bookings. Sandra Gagliardi, manager of the Mercatorhalle, believes Duisburg’s change will be “a long-term process that won’t happen overnight.” But she thinks that you can definitely feel the stimulus provided by the new hall, and points out that with companies like SAP and organizations like the German Association of Veterinary Surgeons coming to Duisburg for their congresses, there are signs that the city is becoming newly established as a congress venue.

As music-lovers leave the hall, the sound of the orchestra still resonates in their heads; it’s hard to readjust to the street noise. Just across the way, workers are drilling and hammering, and construction cranes are offloading reinforced steel. A sign reads: “Future home of the Forum Duisburg,” a shopping center with around 50,000 square meters of sales space—and once again, Bilfinger Berger is involved. This is the next major construction site: clearly, the people of Duisburg are serious about refurbishing their city.

(Text: Philipp Mausshardt, Photos: Frank Schultze)