Rome Auditorium: A Masterpiece Of Awesome Acoustic Architecture

The Auditorium of Rome was eventually opened to the public on dec 21st 2002: Petrassi and Sinopoli Halls were already functioning since April 21st 2002.

The main volumes of the complex consist of three concert halls, allocated in buildings of different sizes, with a shape that recalls that of a scarab; the three rooms are covered with lead plates and radially arranged around an open-air theater, the Cavea, which can accommodate around 3,000 spectators.

The City of Rome provided a public area located between the Olympic Village and the Flaminio Stadium, on the north side of the city, a completely run-down and abandoned area just few kilometres from the city centre along via Flaminia.

The famous architect Renzo Piano, winner of the invitation-only competition in 1993, worked in synergy with Jürgen Reinhold of the Müller-BBM studio in Munich, who cared to provide the three rooms with optimal acoustics, and with the landscape architect Franco Zagari who dealt with urban planning consultancy and outdoor spaces.

During the construction, the remains of a Roman villa were found in the area which entailed modifications to the competition project: the orientation of the auditorium and halls was changed and the connection path between the latter, originally underground, was replaced by a body annular at altitude, which opens both on the cavea and on the area of archaeological excavations.

Besides the three concert halls the Auditorium hosts some complementary activities: a music shop, a restaurant, a flower market. The bar also overlooks the internal patio, which, in addition to functioning as a refreshment service for the Auditorium and for visitors, becomes a small covered square. On the east side there is a multimedia library dedicated to music and a tape library that functions as a database of all the musical events of the Auditorium, as an archive and as a place for study and musical research.