Berlin · Venue

Philharmonie Berlin

A 2,410-capacity Berlin concert hall where the orchestra performs from the centre of terraced seating.

Upcoming shows
171
Address
1 Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, 10785 Berlin
Phone
030 254880
Next show
Wed, 30 Sept 2026
Philharmonie Berlin in Berlin

About Philharmonie Berlin

Philharmonie Berlin is Berlin’s 2,410-capacity main concert hall and the home of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Its defining feature is a central podium wrapped by rising, vineyard-like terraces, so an orchestral performance plays into the room instead of toward a single frontal bank. Hans Scharoun’s tented, gold-coloured building also contains a 1,171-capacity Chamber Music Hall for smaller-scale programmes.

A postwar hall built around the orchestra

Bombing destroyed the previous Philharmonie on 29 January 1944. Hans Scharoun won the competition for its replacement in August 1956, yet arguments around the design, budget and location continued until the Berlin Senate chose the Tiergarten-edge cultural site in 1959. Herbert von Karajan laid the foundation stone on 19 September 1960. The hall opened on 15 October 1963 with Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Its listener-surrounding layout drew early controversy, then shaped a concert-hall model adopted widely elsewhere. The Chamber Music Hall opened in 1987; by 1997, reunified Berlin had grown around a building that had begun life near the Wall in a largely open district.

What the room offers now

Programming centres orchestras and chamber-classical repertoire: the resident Berliner Philharmoniker shares the building with visiting orchestras, chamber ensembles and other artists. The Foundation also presents 40-to-50-minute foyer lunch concerts, with piano, chamber and percussion programmes reaching from Tchaikovsky to tango. In the main auditorium, terrace blocks surround the platform, while choir seating sits behind it; standing places and optional podium seats add further angles. Both halls are available for rental, with instruments including concert grands, harpsichords and the main organ listed for the large room.

Sources

  1. Space – Music – People — Berliner Philharmoniker
  2. Rental — Berliner Philharmoniker
  3. Philharmonie monument entry — Berlin Monument Database, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt
  4. Ticket information — Berliner Philharmoniker

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