Delays Hamper Hamburg Concert Hall

The only thing that everyone agrees on is that the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany's extravagant world-class concert hall, will be built. It is just that it has been three years since the groundbreaking for this planned cultural palace of glass and brick, and no one knows for sure when it will open or how much it will finally cost. And over the next few months, the answer to those two important questions could be even more costly for the political future of Hamburg's government and the reputations of the builders and architects. 'There is a lot at stake for everyone involved,' says Karl Olaf Petters, spokesman for Hamburg's culture ministry, which is overseeing the project. As cities around the world compete for investment, tourism and the best minds, prestigious architectural projects and top-class culture are like magnets, adding to a city's attraction. When Hamburg decided to build a new concert hall, it aimed to create a cultural icon that would make the northern city stand out among European cities. Hamburg hired Herzog & De Meuron, the Basel-based architects famous for projects such as the Bird's Nest, the Beijing National Stadium built for the 2008 Summer Olympics, the Tate Modern in London and the Allianz Arena in Munich. The architects drafted an ambitious plan to build a palatial glass-fronted concert hall atop the old 'Kaiser's warehouse' on a quay that juts out into the Elbe River. The red brick warehouse was first built in 1875 to store cocoa and coffee. It was nearly destroyed by Allied bombs in World War II, and rebuilt in 1963. The architects envisioned topping the old warehouse with towering glass walls and a roof shaped like rolling waves. The building aimed to combine traditional Hamburg architecture and the city's new modern aspirations. The grand concert hall, with 2,200 seats, was designed together with Yasuhisa Toyota, considered the world's best acoustic designer. Mr. Toyota collaborated with Frank Gehry on the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which opened in Los Angeles in 2003. The Elbphilharmonie is on the edge of Hamburg's broader HafenCity regeneration project, which is developing a new neighborhood with office buildings, a university, retail shops and residential housing. The concert building includes a second multiuse hall with 660 seats, hotels with 247 rooms, 45 condominiums and restaurant space seating as many as 300 people. The initial enthusiasm for the Elbphilharmonie has been all but drowned out by the disharmony between the city, the builder and the architects. One major sour note is the steadily rising costs for the project. The city estimated in 2003 that it would cost taxpayers between €40 million and €77 million ($50 million to $100 million) to complete the project. When a city feasibility study was completed in 2005, total costs had risen to €204 million, of which Hamburg taxpayers would have to foot about €95 million. Costs rose again at the beginning of construction in 2007. When Hochtief AG, the builder, renegotiated the contract in 2008, costs had risen again to a total of €503 million. The bill for Hamburg taxpayers had hit €323 million. Even that doesn't seem to be the final price tag. The city of Hamburg says there could be additional costs of as much as €40 million this year. A spokesman for Hochtief says the higher costs were caused by poor planning on the part of the city. Estimates were made by the city that often failed to reflect the true cost of realizing the architect's plans. One example is the acoustic wall, the so-called white skin designed by Mr. Toyota to ensure that the acoustics are worthy of the world's best orchestras. Hamburg planners estimated that this part of the music hall would cost €3.5 million, but the company commissioned to build the wall projected the cost at €15 million. Initially, the Elbphilharmonie was to be ready in time for the 2011-12 concert season. Then, project delays caused the city to postpone the opening until the 2012-13 season. The city no longer expects to meet that deadline and in April filed a suit in a Hamburg court against Hochtief with the aim of forcing the company to commit to a delivery schedule. 'Now they are telling us it could take another year to complete,' Mr. Petters says. 'We need reliable information to plan concerts.' Hochtief insists it will deliver the building on time, though with one caveat. 'Everything will be finished on time,' says Bernd Pütter, a spokesman for Hochtief. 'Just the grand concert hall will be completed a year later.' Completion of the grand concert hall is being delayed by construction mistakes. In order to prevent noise from outside seeping into the concert hall during a performance, the grand concert hall is built as a separate cube inside the larger building. It rests on a series of springs that prevent outside sounds from being transported into the hall. Some of the springs aren't installed correctly and must be replaced. Hochtief has pledged to fix the errors, which Mr. Pütter says are common in such a complex project. But the city isn't sure what to do with a Philharmonic Hall with no grand concert hall available for the grand opening. 'The grand concert hall is important for us,' Mr. Petters says, with typical Hamburg understatement. The architects and the builder also have blamed each other for the long delays. A Hochtief spokesman says that the architects, in their desire to optimize the grand concert hall, have repeatedly changed plans and caused construction delays by turning plans in late. 'We can document that we received plans from the architects a year late,' Mr. Pütter says. A spokesman for Herzog & De Meuron says that all building plans were 'delivered punctually and complete,' adding that 'some of the reasons for additional costs on the part are understandable as a result of additional requirements of the building, but some of the reasons are not.' The spokesman declined to elaborate. Commenting on the construction mistakes, the spokesman said: 'These errors should never have happened in such a sensitive part of the building. Hochtief has promised to correct all the mistakes.' The dispute over the costs and project delays will move into the political arena this autumn when a parliamentary investigation opens to determine the reasons behind the sharp increase in costs for the Elbphilharmonie. The city-state is governed by a coalition of conservative Christian Democrats and environmentalist Greens. The main opposition Social Democrats requested launching a parliamentary investigation and hope to prove that the city government was in large part responsible for the cost increases. 'Hamburg's citizens must learn the whole truth,' said Martina Koeppen, a SPD member of Hamburg's parliament.

» Read more on wsj.com...