Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban has unveiled plans for a 250-seat all-timber concert hall inside a 19th-century armoury in Altdorf, in Switzerland’s Canton of Uri — one of Europe’s highest-profile timber commissions this year. That is according to Shigeru Ban Architects, whose Tokyo, Paris and New York-based practice will insert a fully timber-built volume within the historic shell. Zauberklang — the Swiss cultural platform that pianist and Artistic Director Andreas Haefliger founded — commissioned the CHF 45 million project.
Ban’s proposal retains the armoury’s protected exterior in full, inserting a fluid, organically shaped timber volume within the existing masonry envelope — a design move that contrasts yet respects the 19th-century fabric.
The completed hall will seat approximately 200–250 guests. The configuration delivers what the project team describes as exceptional acoustic intimacy, with performers and audience in direct proximity. “Conceived as a beacon of the arts in the Alps, the Concert Hall in the Zeughaus, Altdorf, will be an intimate space created for world-class artists and audiences,” Zauberklang said.
Ban’s practice built its international reputation on innovative work in timber, paper and bamboo. He pushed back on any suggestion that the commission’s modest scale diminishes its ambition. “The significance of a project has nothing to do with its size,” he said, describing Altdorf’s cultural legacy — including its deep association with the William Tell legend — as “highly compelling” for architectural intervention.
The Altdorf commission extends Ban’s long relationship with Swiss timber construction. His previous Swiss projects — the Tamedia Office Building in Zurich and the Swatch/Omega Campus — advanced the structural limits of engineered wood in both scale and material ambition. The new hall marks a shift in typology, from corporate to cultural, but draws on the same material rigour.
The project extends well beyond performance. A formal partnership between Zauberklang and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University will bring international music students to Uri, positioning the hall as a cross-cultural hub linking Switzerland, Japan and the United States. Private sources, cultural foundations and regional stakeholders will finance the project, whilst Shigeru Ban Architects has yet to confirm a construction timeline.
The commission adds to a growing body of European timber cultural infrastructure where structural engineered wood is displacing concrete and steel. Swiss architects and engineers have quietly led that trend for more than a decade — and Ban’s appointment is likely to accelerate it internationally.
