Concert Hall In Paris: Big Boondoggle?
Just as François Hollande‘s cash-strapped government pulls the plug in France on a score of expensive state arts projects launched by his rightwing predecessor, one exorbitant aluminium structure has bucked the trend. Paris’s futuristic new classical concert venue, the Philharmonie de Paris – a vast metal construction which promises to transform the northern Paris skyline, and designed by starchitect Jean Nouvel – is on track to become the world’s most expensive concert hall despite attempts by some politicians to block it because of its spiralling price tag: $500 million. Is it really worth half-a-billion dollars to have a 2,400-seat concert hall on the north-east edge of Paris?
