The Philharmonie is the home of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the building that put the Kulturforum on the map. Hans Scharoun designed it with the orchestra in the middle of the hall and the audience on terraces around it, the so-called vineyard layout that concert halls from Tokyo to Hamburg have copied since. It opened in October 1963, two years after the Wall went up a few hundred metres away. The gold aluminium cladding that gives it its look was added in the late 1970s.
The large hall seats around 2,400 people. The Chamber Music Hall next door, by Scharoun's colleague Edgar Wisniewski, followed in 1987. Besides the Philharmoniker's own season, the house hosts guest orchestras and promoters. One of them is the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim and Lang Lang on 17 November 2026, whose tickets are sold by the Pierre Boulez Saal.
Visiting
- Tickets: for Philharmoniker concerts through the orchestra's website or box office. For guest concerts, buy from the promoter named on the listing.
- Arriving: the foyers open about an hour before the concert. There is no dress code. Bags larger than A4 go to the cloakroom.
- Late arrival: latecomers wait until a suitable break in the music.
Getting there
S- and U-Bahn Potsdamer Platz is a ten-minute walk. Buses 200 and 300 stop at Philharmonie, and bus M41 at Potsdamer Platz.
Nearby
The Neue Nationalgalerie, Mies van der Rohe's glass hall, is three minutes away on the same square, as are the Gemäldegalerie and the Kunstgewerbemuseum. Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi on the Landwehr Canal is a ten-minute walk south.