Looking a bit like a big holey pancake nestled among the trees, the latest work from Sou Fujimoto Architects continues the firm's practice of producing exciting and eye-catching works with a new museum dedicated to music. The project is named House of Music, Hungary and is conceived as a continuation of the park landscape it's located in.
Despite having a somewhat surreal appearance, the building takes its place well among the forested area of Budapest's City Park, largely due to its roofline being purposely below the height of the surrounding trees.
The roof itself is partly inspired by sound waves and is punctuated with almost 100 holes of varying sizes. Some of the holes have trees growing through them, while others are used to increase natural light inside the building. The interior, meanwhile, replicates the surrounding landscape outside with an intricate suspended ceiling decorated with thousands of tree leaves. From the photos at least, the effect really does look impressive.
"The feeling of being in nature is further enhanced by a canopy of over 30,000 decorative tree leaves set in the suspended ceiling and secured in place by a steel structure made out of 1,000 honeycomb-shaped elements," explained Sou Fujimoto Architects.
The House of Music, Hungary is arranged over three floors, which reflects the three movements of a musical score, says the firm. The ground floor contains the lobby area and related facilities, as well as a glass-walled concert hall. Nagata Acoustics, which also worked on the Elbphilharmonie, handled the acoustic design of the glass wall and installed a specially designed zigzag-shaped wall made up of custom glass panels that allows incoming sound to reverberate and disperse from the glass indirectly.
Elsewhere on the ground floor is an open-air stage, while a spiral staircase leads to educational spaces upstairs. Down in the basement are multiple gallery spaces and exhibitions related to music, as well as a "sound dome" made up of 31 speakers which enables up to 60 people to experience 360-degree sound.
Additionally, the museum is kept a comfortable temperature with an energy efficient geothermal heating and cooling system.
The House of Music is part of a wider Budapest development push and several other major projects are also expected to be completed in the coming months and years.
Source: Sou Fujimoto Architects
