The National Concert Hall proposes to extend the hill on which it sits, as if it was a stepped quarry of stacked stone, radiating outward, or an octagonal Lithuanian fortresses, with their robust presence and multiple vantage points, to create something familiar, yet radical. The roughness and textures of the ceramic panels contrast the smooth and polished surfaces of the metallic cuts. In this way, the fortress becomes indisputably contemporary, permeable and welcoming. It glows from within, shining through these golden surfaces, a beacon on the hill.

We wanted to create a building that would both honor the rich history of Lithuania, yet simultaneously embrace the creation of a new collective icon. In doing so, not only were the icons of the city important urbanistically, but also formally. We looked closer at the Gediminas' Tower, as well as the Bastion of the Vilnius Defensive Wall. In both of these buildings, we see pure geometry dominating a hill, and through their heavy stone stacking, the buildings create a captivating force. The architectural expression of our new National Concert Hall then begins with that challenge: how to create a solid, yet inviting, contemporary icon for Vilnius.

While the building can be both interpreted as a series of excavations from a single large stone, or as a series of stacked volumes, the interior is an unexpected volumetric experience from what is anticipated on the exterior. The atrium embraces the various angles and double or triple heights of the exterior shell. The stacked or carved operations of the exterior vanish to a much richer spatial experience of the form. In its openness, it gives clarity to the volumes of the two concert halls, both accessible from this main lobby, separated by a central grand stair. As one ascends, at each turn, visitors are met with differing framed views of the surrounding landscape through large apertures on the facade.

To soften the exterior solidity of the project, it was important to eliminate a dominant frontality. Instead the building invites you to explore every facade, by creating the effect of mirrored images at every oblique corner, treating each face as an important composition. It becomes much more approachable as a building with many “fronts faces”. In doing so, the concert hall becomes a centrifugal object. As visitors ascend, it invites them to always alternate between the exterior terraced views of the city and the inward-facing atrium and concert halls. In this alteration, the building is both intimate and iconic, a clear desire to harmonize organically with its physical surroundings. From the hill below or the plaza above, visitors will see the differentiation of each facade by the drastic sunlight of Lithuania. The large golden facade of the plaza entry differentiates itself from the glazed white ceramic facade of the northern Tauras Hill entry. In this, we create variety within a unified whole.