The Sofiensaal is a

concert hall A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats. This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that may ...

and recording venue located in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It is situated on Marxergasse, in the city's third district of

Landstraße Landstraße (; Central Bavarian: ''Laundstrossn'') is the 3rd municipal district of Vienna, Austria (german: 3. Bezirk). It is near the center of Vienna and was established in the 19th century. Landstraße is a heavily populated urban area with ...

. The building burned down on 16 August 2001, but it was rebuilt and opened once again in December 2013.

Creation and initial use

The building was completed in 1826. It was named after

Princess Sophie of Bavaria Princess Sophie of Bavaria (Sophie Friederike Dorothea Wilhelmine; 27 January 1805 – 28 May 1872) was the daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife Caroline of Baden. The identical twin sister of Queen Maria Anna of S ...

, the mother of Emperor Franz Josef I. It was originally used as a steam bath and known as the Sofienbad. Between 1845 and 1849, it was converted by the architects

August Sicard von Sicardsburg August Sicard von Sicardsburg (6 December 1813 – 11 June 1868) was an Austrian architect. He is best remembered as the co-architect of the Vienna State Opera, together with Eduard van der Nüll. Sicardsburg was born in Buda. He studied archi ...

and

Eduard van der Nüll Eduard van der Nüll (9 January 1812 (baptized) – 4 April 1868) was an Austrian architect, who was one of the great masters in the historicist style of Vienna's Ringstrasse. ''Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870'', ...

into a dance hall and renamed the Sofiensaal.

Johann Strauss I Johann Baptist Strauss I (; also Johann Strauss Sr., the Elder, the Father; 14 March 1804 – 25 September 1849) was an Austrian composer of the Romantic music, Romantic Period. He was famous for his light music, namely waltzes, polkas, and galo ...

performed there regularly and conducted at the opening ball of the house in 1848. Many of the Strauss family's waltzes were first performed there.Death of a princess
. ''Gramophone Online''. August 2001.

Use as a recording venue

The building's large, vaulted ceiling, and the pool beneath the floor, gives the hall excellent acoustic properties. For this reason,

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

adopted the building as its principal European recording venue for mono recording from 1950 and for stereo recording from 1955 to the mid-1980s. The senior producer of classical recordings for the company for much of this time was

John Culshaw John Royds Culshaw, OBE (28 May 192427 April 1980) was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He produced a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's ''Der Ring ...

, who revolutionised the recording of classical music, particularly opera with the

Decca tree The Decca Tree is a spaced microphone array most commonly used for orchestral recording. It was originally developed as a sort of stereo A–B recording method adding a center fill. The technique was developed in the early 1950s and first commercia ...

. Notable recordings made at the Sofiensaal during this period included the first complete studio recording of

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

Ring Cycle (''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the ''Nibelung ...

, conducted by

Georg Solti Sir Georg Solti ( , ; born György Stern; 21 October 1912 – 5 September 1997) was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor, known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-servin ...

Destruction and restoration

In the years before the fire, the Sofiensaal fell into disuse as a recording studio and was used for parties and discos. The last recording made there before the fire, in July 2001, was of

Arcadi Volodos Arcadi Arcadievich Volodos (russian: Аркадий Аркадьевич Володось, links=no, ''Arkadij Arkadjevich Volodos''; born 24 February 1972) is a Russian pianist and composer. His first name is sometimes transliterated Arcady or Ar ...

playing solo piano works by

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

. In May 2001, the building's owners announced that it would be used as a conference centre. However, it was destroyed by fire on 16 August 2001, due to careless routine maintenance work. The fire burned for more than eight hours and completely destroyed the main ballroom, although the facade and walls of the building survived. Some of the decorative stucco work on the walls survived the fire, as did the adjacent Blauer Salon, a small side venue. There were no reported deaths or injuries. In January 2006, it was announced that the Sofiensaal was to be redeveloped and converted into apartments, although the plans changed, building the apartments around the facade. The new owner, ifa AG, painstakingly rebuilt the historic ballroom and listed historical façade. They also used the surrounding 12,000 square metre area to create the originally planned apartments, a hotel, a catering company, a fitness studio, and various function rooms. It was finally reopened in December 2013. During the reopening ceremony, the hall was filled with celebrity guests who watched the history of the location as well as a finale through the use of 3D projections from Christie projectors.

References

External links

A set of photos of the ruined Sofiensaal
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Landstraße Cultural venues in Vienna Concert halls in Austria Cultural infrastructure completed in 1826 1826 establishments in the Austrian Empire