Laeiszhalle Hamburg

Shipowners' money built it: the Laeisz family endowed the hall that carries their name, and Martin Haller's neo-Baroque design was inaugurated on the Hamburg Wallring on 4 June 1908 as the Musikhalle. For a century it was the country's grandest concert address. Richard Strauss, Prokofiev and Stravinsky all conducted their own music there; Horowitz played in 1926, and from the 1960s the programme opened to jazz and popular music, the Grateful Dead in 1972 among the more improbable visitors. The building came through the Second World War essentially intact, after which British forces used it for a time as a studio for the BFN radio service. The Philharmoniker Hamburg and the Hamburger Symphoniker are both at home in it, with a recital room of 640 seats beside the great hall. Since the Elbphilharmonie opened downriver, the Laeiszhalle has shared the city's concert life rather than defining it alone.