Graft wins competition for Bechstein Campus in Berlin's Europacity

In the heart of Berlin, close to the government district and central station, the Carl Bechstein Foundation is planning to build a new campus and cultural centre dedicated entirely to piano music. With the planned representative office, the traditional Bechstein brand is creating an architectural nucleus and finding a new home in the city where it was founded in 1853. At the centre of the extensive building project are rooms for the exhibition and presentation of the company's world-famous upright and grand pianos as well as two public music halls for performances of the entire range of piano repertoire.

New piano chamber music hall enriches Berlin's cultural landscape

The large piano chamber music hall on the Carl Bechstein Campus will become a valuable component of Berlin's cultural landscape. With its frontal orientation, the hall for 500 guests is the perfect complement to the centrally organised Berlin chamber music halls of the Philharmonie and the Pierre Boulez Saal. Its sound and structural design have been developed in close co-operation with the engineers at ARUP and in particular their renowned concert hall acoustician Tateo Nakajima. A smaller hall for around 100 listeners completes the programme. Access to the two halls is via a spectacular foyer and staircase that develops over several storeys along the façade and welcomes visitors with a grand gesture.
The Bechstein Campus fills the last large gap along Heidestrasse, which has been built on the edge of the block in recent years. At a central point, the design by GRAFT opens up the continuous building cubature generously to the street by means of a diagonal spatial widening. The new Franz-Liszt-Platz that is being created here opens up the diversity of the campus to visitors and becomes an identity-forming address for the Bechstein brand.

A vibrant centre for piano music and culture

On the southern side of Franz-Liszt-Platz, a ground-floor restaurant complements the public character of the new urban space, the depth of which is finally closed off by an existing five-storey commercial building. This existing building will be seamlessly integrated into the building concept. In addition to the two music halls, the campus will house the future flagship store of the Bechstein piano brand in Berlin as well as a museum for the Bechstein collection of historical pianos and harpsichords, 30 musician's flats, office space, a restaurant and a piano bar above the rooftops of Berlin.

All areas of the campus can basically be used independently of each other, but can be interwoven with each other in a variety of ways inside. The overarching aim is to create a vibrant building that is filled with piano music and welcomes its guests with open arms. The museum, the Bechstein Academy and the musicians' flats in the western wings of the building symbolise the public relations work and accessibility of the Bechstein brand, which makes an important contribution to Berlin's cultural life, particularly through its activities in schools and the promotion of students. In the rear part of the campus, 30 artist flats, equipped with concert grand pianos, are being built for the Carl Bechstein Academy's "artists in residence" programme.

Dynamic architecture combines piano music and the city

GRAFT has developed a dynamic architectural language for the Carl Bechstein Campus with an undulating brick façade that opens up generously to the city at the most important entrances. Along Heidestrasse to the east, the "curtain" of the façade rises and falls to allow spectacular views of the concert foyers and the Bechstein brand's world of pianos. The essentially vertical structure of the brick façade along Heidestrasse is set into a kind of oscillation by slightly twisting the upright elements, allowing flowing transitions between open and closed façade areas.

The entire concept of the Bechstein Campus supports the networking of the Bechstein brand with the city. Thanks to its great cultural power and courageous accessibility, the Bechstein Campus can in future, as an open house of music and a historic address for Berlin's music scene, make a decisive contribution to enhancing Europacity on Heidestrasse and enriching Berlin's music scene.


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(Source: GRAFT Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH, 02|16|2024 | “CARL BECHSTEIN CAMPUS - New building and conversion for a campus with concert halls, offices, sales rooms and student flats”)