Casa da musica

Somewhere incredible we love from across the Ryanair network

PORTO
The Casa da Música in Porto was an instant sensation when it opened on 14 April 2005 with a concert by Lou Reed and was inaugurated by Prime Minister José Sócrates the next day. From the outside, the Rem Koolhaas-designed building is a riot of unexpected angles and optical illusions, which led a number of commentators to refer to it as Portugal’s answer to Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. On the inside there are two concert halls, a restaurant and a handful of smaller workshops and practise rooms. Given the whimsy of the building itself, it is no surprise that the performances inside tend toward the avant garde: late last year, a pioneering series of concerts took place in which electronic sensors would follow the physical movements of the musicians and "translate" those movements into a light and image show on the spot.