Mobile concert hall by Arata Isozaki

As a memorial to honor the victims of the devastating earthquake on March 11, 2011, in the eastern Japanese region of Higashi Nihon, a mobile concert hall will be created where various benefit concerts will take place. The project is the result of collaboration between the legend of Japanese architecture Arata Isozaki, English artist with Indian roots Anish Kapoor, Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and London stage specialist David Staples. Arata Isozaki, along with long-time collaborator Michael Haefliger, organizer of the Lucerne Festival, has worked to establish 'The Ark Nova Project' - an easily deployable and collapsible mobile hall. Isozaki's design closely resembles the happenings of Berlin's Raumlabor. A similar traversable red balloon titled 'Leviathan' was realized by Anish Kapoor at this year's Monumenta in Paris’s Grand Palais. Invited participants quickly agreed on what the mobile concert hall should look like and came up with a slightly modified Parisian installation that will measure 72 x 40 x 23 meters and can accommodate 500-700 spectators. For more demanding performances, the Japanese acoustician prepared wooden paneling that can organically connect to Kapoor's sculpture. All costs for acquiring 'Ark Nova', estimated at 4-5 million euros, will be covered by sponsorship donations, and the first sounds inside the red bubble will resonate next May.

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