The Royal Concertgebouw (Dutch: het Koninklijk Concertgebouw) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term “concertgebouw” translates into English as “concert building”. Its superb acoustics place it among the finest concert halls in the world, along with Boston’s Symphony Hall and the Musikverein in Vienna.
In celebration of the building’s 125th anniversary, Queen Beatrix bestowed the royal title “Koninklijk” upon the building on 11 April 2013, as she had on the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra upon its 100th in 1988.
The Main Hall (Grote Zaal) seats 1,974, and is 44 metres (144 feet) long, 28 metres (92 feet) wide, and 17 metres (56 feet) high. Its reverberation time is 2.8 seconds without audience, 2.2 seconds with, making it ideal for the late Romantic repertoire such as Mahler. Although this characteristic makes it largely unsuited for amplified music, groups such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Who did perform there in the 1960s. In the Main Hall, there is a layer of dust in several places as removing this layer would impact the acoustics as they are now.
A smaller, oval-shaped venue, the Recital Hall (Kleine Zaal), is located behind the Main Hall. The Recital Hall is 20 metres (66 feet) long and 15 metres (49 feet) wide. Its more intimate space is well-suited for chamber music and Lieder. The Recital Hall has 437 seats.
In 1983, the Concertgebouw was found to be sinking into the damp Amsterdam earth, with several inch-wide cracks appearing in the walls, so the hall embarked on extensive fundraising for renovations. Its difficult emergency restoration started in 1985, during which the 2,186 rotting wooden pilings were replaced with concrete pillars. Dutch architect Pi de Bruijn designed a modern annex for a new entrance and a basement to replace cramped dressing and rehearsal space.
