Bonn won’t get new Beethoven hall

Bonn won’t get new Beethoven hall

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norman lebrecht

June 17, 2015

The sudden withdrawal of Deutsche Post DHL has left advanced plans for a new concert hall in Bonn in tatters. The postal company said there was ‘no public solidarity for the project’ and no obvious benefit for sponsors.

The organising committee, which had persuaded the city to allocate land for the hall and commissioned a David Chipperfield design, described the Post’s withdrawal as ‘a gigantic embarrassment’.

The hall was due to be opened in 2020, on the composer’s 250th birthday. That plan is now dead.

On the plus side, the proposed design was really dull – London’s South Bank, only sleepier.

BDCfestspielhaus-chipperfield-02

Comments

  • John Borstlap says:

    ‘Dull’ is a very generous description. The picture shows a catastrophic design that would deter even the most hardened Beethoven fan.

  • Olassus says:

    Bonn is mostly Muslim now, I believe, so the interests are changing. An acquaintance of mine runs the music program at one of the churches, but in Bonn’s suburbs.

  • Novagerio says:

    Why care for a proof? Is that forbidden? Muslims are part of Berlin and Vienna and other metropoles…..and catholics and lutherans and orthodox and jews and rastafaris and harakrishnas and and and….so what??

    • Simon S. says:

      Sure, absolutely agree (don’t forget agnostics and atheists, btw), but saying they make the majority of the inhabitants of Bonn, is simply false. But certain quarters in Germany (Mr. Thielemann, are you reading this?) are very happy with such false statements that fit their ideology of an alleged islamisation of Europe (which they want to fight).

      Actually, Muslims make about 9% of Bonn’s population:
      http://www2.bonn.de/statistik/default.asp?2

  • Novagerio says:

    Simon, if it’s a religious/cultural reason, then agnostics and atheists don’t have to worry or feel the slightest threatened.

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