Concert Halls by Nagata Acoustics

Thirty Years of Acoustical Design for Music Venues and Vineyard-Style Auditoria

Heidelberg | Los Angeles, 09 April 2021

Sir Simon Rattle, quoted in the foreword, has said that: “Concert halls are instruments. Whatever we all do, however excellently we perform, we are nothing without the space into which the music travels. I really believe that the general public has no idea what an astonishing difference great acoustic can make to a performance, particularly in emotional terms. Yasu has long been the Stradivarius of concert hall design, and in his spaces we no longer have any excuse, we simply HAVE to perform at our highest level.”

The book, Concert Halls by Nagata Acoustics, illustrates details of a collection of 32 concert halls and covers projects such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Philarmonie de Paris, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. It is filled with physical data, photos, drawings and essays and “descriptions of some topics on acoustics we [Nagata Acoustics] learned by working on the projects, which help us consider design directions for concert hall projects in the future,” comments Yasuhisa Toyota. The book is divided into two parts and reflects the multitude of concert halls Yasuhisa Toyota and Nagata Acoustics have worked on over more than 30 years; as such, it is also a homage to Dr Minoru Nagata.

The authors offer an inside look at the design process and unique considerations behind Toyota’s particular design philosophy and the history, development and acoustical features of the so-called vineyard- and surround-style concert hall layouts characteristic of Nagata Acoustics. These are halls where the audience surrounds the stage, and the audience is divided into several groups. They are often remembered for their acoustical intimacy, as feelings are shared between the stage and the audience as well as between audience members themselves. The book provides readers with new insights and perspectives on acoustics as engineering and music as art.

About the book

The book, Concert Halls by Nagata Acoustics, is published under the dual ASA Press/Springer imprint and represents a collaboration between the Acoustical Society of America and Springer Nature, which is dedicated to publishing critical new books as well as the distribution of classic titles in acoustics to reflect the full range of research in acoustics. 

About the authors

Hailed by The New Yorker as the engineer of “a string of triumphs,” Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagata Acoustics has established himself as the authority in the successful creation of the increasingly popular vineyard style concert hall. From well-known concert halls like Walt Disney Concert Hall and Suntory Hall to lesser known gems, Toyota and his colleagues at Nagata Acoustics have discovered an approach to tailor the vineyard design to a variety of scales and uses, all while achieving acoustic excellence. The book is co-authored by Motoo Komoda, Marc Quiquerez, and Erik Bergal at Nagata Acoustics and Daniel Beckmann, a former colleague at Nagata Acoustics.

Yasuhisa Toyota, Motoo Komoda, Daniel Beckmann, Marc Quiquerez, and Erik Bergal 

Concert Halls by Nagata Acoustics
2020, 355 p., 111 b/w, 2235 illus. in color 
eBook  €96,29 | £87,50 | $109,00
ISBN 978-3-030-42449-7
eISBN 978-3-030-42450-3