BIG Unveils EVE Music Hall in the Slavonian Landscape

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Marko Pipunić revealed the design for EVE Music Hall as construction nears completion in eastern Croatia. The 10,000-square-meter project occupies a site within the agricultural landscapes of Slavonia and serves as a regional cultural destination. The facility centers on a live music venue while integrating congress facilities, exhibition spaces, a café, and a rooftop for public events.

The architectural composition features two distinct halls connected by a shared public foyer. Slabs of local limestone clad the building envelope, creating a form that mimics theatrical curtains. These stone surfaces pull away from the ground at specific intervals to reveal interior activities and guide visitor movement into the central gathering space. This strategy merges the vertical massing of the performance volumes with the horizontal character of the surrounding fields.

Interior Materiality and Spatial Continuity

Inside the music hall, suspended timber beams and mirrored surfaces define the atmospheric quality of the interior design. The main foyer sits between the two primary concert halls, utilizing mirror-clad walls to reflect the tent-like timber roof structure. This reflective treatment creates a visual sense of infinite space within the central circulation core. These building materials emphasize a contrast between the heavy exterior stone and the warm, rhythmic wood systems of the ceiling.

The design team organized the program to support diverse operational needs beyond musical performances. The inclusion of exhibition areas and congress spaces allows the building to function as a multi-use civic hub. By elevating event programming to the rooftop, the project maximizes the footprint of the site and provides views across the Slavonian countryside. The architectural logic balances functional requirements with a sculptural presence in the rural context.

“The EVE Music Hall is conceived as a musical eruption on the infinite horizon of the Slavonian fields. Two concert halls, one big and one small, frame a public space between them. Facades of timber and stone are draped like fabrics, merging the verticality of the halls with the horizontality of the landscape. Slits in the stone curtains open up, inviting visitors to enter and explore.”

Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG

✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight

EVE Music Hall establishes a significant cultural infrastructure within a traditionally agrarian region of Croatia. The project moves beyond the typical urban context of major performance venues, instead using the horizontal Slavonian landscape as a primary driver for its formal logic. By employing local limestone in a draped configuration, the design team translates theatrical motifs into a permanent material system. The dual-hall configuration connected by a mirrored foyer optimizes internal circulation while providing flexible space for congress and exhibition functions. This intervention demonstrates how high-capacity cultural programming can integrate into rural settings through specific material choices and a reorganised approach to public foyers and rooftop accessibility.