Fire in Berlin Philharmonic hall--no apparent damage to pipe organ

BERLIN — Firefighters on Tuesday battled a blaze below the roof of the Berlin Philharmonic's home that sent a cloud of acrid gray smoke pouring out and had musicians rushing to save their instruments. Firefighters kept watch on the building over night and quickly put out two small blazes that flared up. They are keeping watch on the building on Wednesday and have used a thermal camera to search for any remaining embers. Fire officers on Wednesday will now try to assess the full extent of the damage and investigate what caused the blaze.

Damage to the building seems to be far less extensive than originally feared in the huge concert hall, which seats 2,400 people and is famed for its acoustics. "There was very little water damage," Berlin's culture minister, Andre Schmitz, told the city's Info Radio on Wednesday.

The blaze broke out just before 2 pm, around the time a lunchtime concert in the building's ground-floor foyer was letting out and an hour before 700 people were due to start rehearsing Hector Berlioz' "Te Deum" for a series of weekend concerts being directed by Claudio Abbado, the orchestra's former chief conductor.

Officials said there were no injuries. Welding work that had been done on the building's tin roof earlier in the day is being considered as a possible cause.

Although the first fire engines arrived at the scene just six minutes after the alarm was called fighting the fire proved difficult. Firefighters cut open parts of the tent-shaped roof, some 160 feet above the ground, to get at the fire. The fire was brought under control shortly after 7 p.m.

Musicians, assisted by firefighters, were allowed into the building to remove instruments they had left in their lockers overnight following Monday's rehearsal. A senior orchestra member told reporters later that about 50 "priceless" instruments, most of them string instruments, were removed in total, and that "we can rule out" the risk of any damage to any others. Heavier instruments, such as concert pianos, were housed below the main concert hall, and not in immediate danger. No mention was made of the hall’s pipe organ or any possible damage to it.

The Philharmonie, which was designed by architect Hans Scharoun and held its first concert in 1963, is a landmark in downtown Berlin, where its asymmetrical shape resembling a big-top circus tent juts into the skyline beside the Potsdamer Platz complex. At its center is the main concert hall, with its pentagonally shaped orchestra pit and tiers of seats that radiate out from it so that the musicians sit in the center of the audience. The Philharmonic was once home to legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan and is led today by Simon Rattle.