The architectural installation with Staging the Concert at Bozar opens the 2024-25 season and a different era in the life of Brussels’ main cultural venue. The multimedia art centre is trying out a new format – architectural and musical. The flagship architectural firm Robbrecht en Daem architecten, author of major hits in Belgium in the last 20 years (from Concertgebouw in Bruges to Stadshal in their native Ghent). Abroad, the renovation of the famous Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam and the transformation of the Udarnik cinema in Moscow into an art centre. The style of the office is characterised by colleagues as ‘New Simplicity’ with minimalism and deconstructivism and a special attention to light.

In Staging the Concert, Paul Robbrecht, head of the bureau, deconstructs Béla Bartók’s fugue Music for Strings, Percussion and Cheliste (1937). The Hungarian composer juxtaposes two identical groups of string instruments as a mirror image, placing percussion in between. ‘Robbrecht en Daem architecten set to work on this particular arrangement, embodying the architectural principles of the score in five soaring objects in the Henry Le Bœuf Hall, emphasised by an elaborate lighting design. The architect used the Fibonacci numerical sequence (popular in contemporary art) to work on the arrangement. The piece that was shown to journalists impressed!

The premiere of ‘Staging the Concert’ is on 20 September at 20.00 in the Henry Le Bœuf Hall designed by Victor Horta personally.

The Flemish Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Hungarian conductor Gábor Káli (there is an opinion in the music world that compatriots understand and interpret composers better).

At 19.00 architects Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem and Bella Bartók expert Mark Delaere in conversation with journalist Gudrun De Geyter.

By the way, it was ‘Robbrecht en Daem architecten’ who designed the Victor restaurant in Bozar.
See Paul Robbrecht’s explanation of the ‘Staging the Concert’ concept in a meeting with journalists.