Opening Year | 2022 |
Location | Stockholm, Sweden |
Capacity | 300 seats |
Architect | Giorgio Palù – arkpabi |
Client | Musikskolan Lilla Akademien AB |
Ramsbury Property AB |
Established in 1994 in Stockholm as a music school, Lilla Akademien today combines high-quality music education with integrated academic curriculum, and teaches children and young adults aged 4 to 25. The school is located in central Stockholm, and housed in a former orphanage and hospital erected in 1885. The new hall was built inside one of the buildings of the campus, to serve both as a small performance hall and a rehearsal hall for the school’s ensemble. The vision was to create a flexible space aimed at a variety of performance formats, with the ambition to “educate musicians of (and for) the future,” and encourage creativity for students and professional artists alike.
Nagata Acoustics was invited to consult on the project in late 2013, and architect Giorgio Palù was appointed as designer in 2015. The team started by identifying the most suitable building on the campus, one that could maximize the potential for design and functionality. With two floor slabs removed, facade columns reinforced, and roof rebuilt, the building could accommodate a 26m-long and 11m-wide rectangular footprint and a maximum pitched ceiling height of 13m.
The centrally-located stage occupies half of the footprint on its entire width, in order to accommodate rehearsals for larger ensembles of pupils. For performances, loose chairs and removable chairs can be placed around and in the central area to adjust size and layout. Two asymmetrical tiers of fixed seating climb steeply on either side. Two levels of undulating balcony float over the hall, partially detached from the walls. They were built with nothing more than their bare concrete slabs in order to let sound flow in and around the entirety of the volume.
The hall was inaugurated on June 7th, 2022 by HM Queen Silvia of Sweden, patron of the school.