| Opening Year | 2013 |
| Location | Cremona, Italy |
| Capacity | 475 seats |
| Architect | ARKPABI |
| Owner | Museo del Violino |
| User | Commune de Cremona |
| Fondazione Stradivari |
The generosity of local entrepreneur Giovanni Arvedi, through his Arvedi-Buschini Foundation, has provided the city with a new home for the several violin collections in the city. As a major part of the new Museo del Violino, a chamber hall with approximately 475 seats is intended to host concerts on the historical instruments as well as the instrument auditions for the violinmaking competition.
The new hall is being inserted into the former gymnasium of the Palazzo dell’Arte, designed in the late 1930’s by the Italian Rationalist architect Carlo Coccia. The dimensions of the original gymnasium were approximately 36m long, 14m wide and 10m tall. To give an ideal room air volume, the decision was made to excavate below the existing floor of the room to increase the ceiling height, resulting in a ceiling height of 14m above the stage. The expectation that the hall is only to be used for solo and chamber works allowed the use of a small stage, measuring only 85m2 allowing the stage to be placed almost in the center of the hall, giving more than one potential sightline for the seating.
Since the majority of the hall’s design was restricted by the existing walls and ceiling, the major focus of the acoustical design effort was to insert a seating layout into the room. Thus, there are seats on all sides of other audience members. The materials palette in the hall is kept very simple: wood and plaster. The original walls and ceilings of the room are maintained with the original plaster surface, using neutral colors of white for the walls and light grey for the ceiling. The new construction is clad exclusively in honey-colored wood.