New Work: Philharmonie Luxembourg

Justus Oehler and his team in Berlin have designed the first annual report for the Philharmonie Luxembourg, the national concert hall of Luxembourg. The 140-page book describes the history and activities of the Philharmonie, which was launched in 2005 and is home to the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Solistes Européens, the Orchestre de Chambre du Luxembourg, and other musical groups.

The designers used reportage-style black and white photography of staff in action to separate the individual sections of the report. The overarching colour theme is based on the Philharmonie’s rainbow-hued identity, also designed by Pentagram Berlin. The identity references the hall’s distinctive architecture by the Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc. The logo shows the name set in black and complemented by a configuration of vertical lines in the colours of a rainbow. The typography recalls the slender columns of the main hall, while the rainbow of lines suggests both the curved wave of the building’s glass façade and the rich, colourful nature of music.