The building forms the last installment in the elegant, urban crescent around Jyväskylä’s Church Park. It is also part of a series of civic structures that will reinforce Church Park as a centre for cultural activities. Within the building, we have tried to create a diverse collection of volumes that vary in terms of scale, height, lighting (natural and artificial), views, climates (internal and external), colours and textures. These qualities define a range of spaces where the chance meetings between music and art lovers can take place.

The building is designed with several public entrances. People walk freely through the building as they take a ‘short cut’ from Kilpisenkatu Street to Vapaudenkatu Street, stopping on route to sit down and look at art on display in the public zones or to visit the restaurant and shop, or drop into the media workshops.

The concert hall and the chamber music hall are required to be structurally isolated from the rest of the building organised into three functional zones supported by three, independent structural systems. The first zone, the block facing Church Park is conceived as a self-supporting three-dimensional vierendeel beam structure that spans the length of the site and floats over a ‘column free’ entrance hall.

The main concert hall, clad in timber, stands on four massive legs. The third zone, the support facilities, service halls and storage areas, is supported by conventional load bearing structures. By day, the building’s facades reinforce the urban qualities of Church Park but by night, the facades would reveal the constructional and volumetric ambitions of te project.