In the heart of Basel, a remarkable venue has emerged, blending cutting-edge technology with a rich and unconventional history. Anna Mitchell reports.
Kuppel Basel, crowned by a striking dome that lends its name to the venue, traces its origins to an earlier, iconic iteration: a temporary tent-turned-nightclub that became legendary for its vibrant energy and infamous for its lack of sound isolation.
Originally transported to Basel from a Swiss exhibition, the tent served as a beloved cultural hotspot before noise complaints and structural impermanence demanded a more enduring solution.
Enter a visionary team of architects, acoustic specialists, and AV integrators who, through a collaborative journey, have transformed this site into a permanent home for music. The new Kuppel Basel stands not only as a tribute to its storied past but as a beacon of modern design and technical excellence, delivering a compelling and memorable experience for audiences and performers alike.
The concert venue, designed by Basel architect firm Vécsey*Schmidt Architekt*innen, is comprised of two buildings: Kuppel, the main building named from the cupola adorning its ceiling, and a separate annex, home to Nest Klub, a basement nightclub.
Robert Müller, the architect heading up the Kuppel project from Vécsey*Schmidt Architekt*innen, says: “We wanted to have some reference to the old Kuppel, which was very eye-catching because of its tent structure. We wanted to bring this idea back somehow. The venue is located within a park and there’s a bridge over it, so it can be seen from above. It was very important to have an eye-catching roof. This is where the idea for the dome structure, or the cupola, comes from.”

Photo credit: © Vécsey Schmidt Architekt:innen, Pati Grabowicz
The second annex building wasn’t part of the original plan but a result of Vécsey*Schmidt Architekt*innen realising the planned venue was too small to handle the varied needs of the space.
“We had so much technical equipment and everything had to go above the ceiling, it would have destroyed the roof in the end,” says Müller. “We decided to build another building next to it, which acts as the building for all the equipment that Kuppel needs but also has a restaurant and other facilities.”
WSDG, a global acoustics and AV consultant with offices in Basel, was hired to handle room acoustics, electro-acoustics and the isolation acoustic design of the spaces with a scope that extended to the design of the sound reinforcement system for the main concert hall and an associated club within the venue.
Gabriel Hauser, one of WSDG’s partners and the company’s director of acoustics took the lead on the project for WSDG. He was supported by fellow partner and director of systems, Michael Chollet, who handled the installation side including design of sound reinforcement systems and the electrical and cabling aspects of the project’s AV design.
One of the defining aspects of the redevelopment of the site was how unconventional much of the project was. “There are many unusual elements in this project,” says Hauser. “The Kuppel Concert Hall is only one (albeit the most prominent) element of the campus, which also includes the foyer, band rehearsal room, a restaurant, the dance club and offices. In addition, the Kuppel space itself had to accommodate many different users with very varied needs.”
Adding to the challenge was the venue’s location. “The building is located in the middle of Basel and right next to a residential area,” explains Hauser. “We needed to make sure that the sound isolation for rock and pop concerts - and for the dance club that plays house, electronic and dance music - was high enough to not bother the neighbours.
“The laws in Switzerland are extremely strict. During a show, there cannot be any 10 second period where a certain amount of noise is exceeded. This can be tricky because the maximum allowed level inside is 100 dBA. So you cannot have more than that anyway, but if you have less because of neighbours’ complaints, then you run into issues that can ruin the whole experience.”
Technology installation in the main Kuppel venue was handled by AV systems integrator Auviso with Christoph Ritter, head of the company’s Basel branch, leading the project.
Completing the integration team was Konnex. The technology provider that specialises in events, handled lighting design and installation of the entire lighting package as well as video and DJ production equipment. Konnex was involved in the project from a very early stage advising on what would be required at the venue from an events perspective.
Making an entrance
For concert goers the party starts as soon as they walk through the door and follows them even if they take a trip to the bathroom.
Walking us through the project, Hauser explains: “The foyer is about 40 sq m and includes the entrance area bar. The ground floor toilets are unisex and have been designed to accommodate a DJ set.”
The foyer features two Coda Audio U12i 12-in subwoofers integrated into the seating benches along with six wall-mounted Coda Audio D8 8-in coaxial speakers. The party atmosphere extends to the bathroom where two Coda HOPS8i point source speakers and a Coda U4-Sub will be installed.
The use of Coda extends through the entire main Kuppel venue and all speakers are amplified using Coda Audio processing amps, a mix of Linus 12D and Linus 14C. Routing and matrix functions throughout the building are performed with Symmetrix Edge DSP and Dante is used as the audio distribution protocol.
A crucial consideration for the team was to build in the flexibility to accommodate future requirements. For Konnex that included considering power requirements for events outside the venue. Gabriel Kreis, managing director of Konnex, says: “We used our experience in events to try and consider future scenarios and build in infrastructure that would allow ultimate flexibility.”
Centre stage
The two upper floors above the bar and entrance area are where the main concert venue can be found: the Kuppel live sound venue.
Hauser takes up the story: “The audience area on the first floor is about 100 sq m and can accommodate 390 people, and we have 30 sq m stage for performers as well as a backstage area. On the second floor is a balcony area that can host another 300 people. The concert venue has a total capacity of 600 people.”
Returning to the issue of sound isolation Hauser says the challenges they faced forced the entire team working on the project to come up with a creative and interesting solution that required close cooperation between Vécsey*Schmidt Architekt*innen and WSDG.
Hauser says: “Robert [Müller] was already very savvy in terms of acoustical building design and very aware about acoustical challenges in terms of sound isolation and room acoustics. The collaboration was really easy because, when I said, ‘we have to be careful about this and that’, he already knew what I was talking about.

“The Kuppel itself is built as a concrete structure with a balcony, with everything as one single monostructure,” he says. “And then we put another shielding structure over it, almost like a cheese dome. And the important part is that the outer shell doesn't have any mechanical contact to the concrete inner shell, which ensures high-quality sound isolation.
“So there's an entire secondary skin that has been put over the Kuppel. To ensure there's no coupling connection, we had to design special springs that are now mounted along the facade to give a structural stability so that the facade doesn't crumble under different weather conditions. That was an approach that the companies [involved in delivering the project] had never done before.
“When the structure was in place it was tested it with a device that 'excited' the inner concrete structure with little hammers that were falling on the concrete. We listened with a stethoscope on the outside facade to see if we could hear any of those mechanical noises. We went around the whole facade and the decoupling was working everywhere.”
Müller takes up the story: “The room is kind of unusual. It has a feeling of a circus tent. When you enter this building, and you have the stage light showing the stage set with all the instruments before the concert starts, it has quite an impact.”
Hauser elaborates: “The Kuppel doesn’t need to have a long reverb time because it’s acoustically designed for electro-acoustically reinforced music, but nevertheless it opens up, and it gives a feeling of grandeur.”
Lighting was a vital part of creating this atmosphere and Konnex installed architectural lighting to highlight the dome of the Kuppel in a subtle but effective way. They also handled stage and event lighting. Kreis says: “We had to get the most possible out of the space. Depending on the event, sometimes the focus is on the stage and sometimes it’s on the whole room. We had to consider both uses.”
To meet this need the team at Konnex installed two different moving lights options. “The first one is Martin Rush MH 5 profile fixtures with different options for lighting design such as flowers and beam effects,” explains Kreis. “The other is the Robe LEDBeam 150 wash lighting which we chose because it can go from very narrow to quite wide. We have the option to use it as stage lighting or as effect lighting as well.
“We also have small stage lighting which is like natural lighting for the stage that is used for speeches or to give a little light for the bands. It’s not show lighting.”
When it came to lighting control the team at Kuppel indicated they didn’t want to have a lighting operator with a lighting desk for every show. Kreis says: “We decided to use a hybrid MA lighting system which can be commanded over an iPad or can be overtaken with a proper desk. If there is a band coming in with a lighting operator, they can take control of the system and add other lighting as well. Day-to-day lighting can be handled in house without additional costs but if you need to get more out of it, the flexibility is there.”
As well as lighting Konnex was instrumental in adding a crucial element to support the dramatic effect of the Kuppel sound stage. “The centrepiece of the room is a huge mirror ball,” says Kreis. “This is handmade by our company. It has a diameter of 1.4m and the scale of the mirror ball compared to the room is perfect.”
As well as custom-building this unique element Konnex had the added challenge that the largest entrance into the Kuppel is 1.2m. “There is no space to bring anything big into the Kuppel,” says Kreis. “Either it had to be in at construction phase or must be brought in in small pieces and assembled inside.”
Left and right hangs of Coda Audio APS series arrays speakers were flown either side of the stage. Each array consists of one 18-in APS-Sub and three APS speakers featuring two 10-in and a coaxial mid-high-frequency horn. For optimal low frequency impact and distribution within the venue, a spaced array of five SCN-F servo controlled subwoofers are installed under the stage lip. Vécsey*Schmidt Architekt*innen was hands-on and supportive in getting the best result for the venue when it came to audio installation.
“Robert [Müller] worked out how we optimise in terms of installation height, so the speaker set up looks nice with the balcony and the positioning of the stage and the lower edge of the array,” says Hauser.
“The mechanical aspects of mounting the loudspeakers were thought out by Robert [Müller]. He didn't just give it to the installer. For the main systems, he built something, showing how it could look and where it could be mounted, and how much load it could take. We also knew that we wanted to have a subwoofer array under the stage and we had to find a compromise on the stage height. For architectural reasons we didn't want to have a stage that was too high, but we wanted to install subwoofers that have a certain volume to produce low frequencies. We found a loudspeaker from Coda, which is extremely compact and extremely powerful, and we were able to position five of these subwoofers under the stage with the required height of the stage.”

Photo credit: © Vécsey Schmidt Architekt:innen, Pati Grabowicz
The PA system is complemented with Coda Audio N-APS systems rigged opposite the stage for either surround effects or as a 4-point set up for DJs.
A set of Coda Audio N-APS loudspeakers were installed for the gallery. Monitoring on stage is handled with two Coda Audio HOPS8 sidefills mounted under the gallery, and six Cue Two monitor speakers with a G15 subwoofer.
A Yamaha CL4 with Rio 3224-D2 was selected as the live sound console. Shure, DPA and Sennheiser microphones were provided.
A Panasonic projector was also installed at the back of the room and fires onto the wall above the stage. Even this element came with architectural considerations.
Hauser notes: “This is the only wall that is concave so it cannot be acoustically reflective because of resulting focusing effects. We needed this wall to be absorptive. So now it's a micro perforated wood that combines the architectural requirements and the requirements for video projection and for acoustics. We were fortunate enough to be able to find the optimal solution for almost every aspect.”

Photo credit: Dirk Noy, WSDG
“We decided to use perforated wood panels with very tiny holes,” adds Müller. “We needed them to be really small otherwise you would end up seeing a moiré effect.”
This building also houses eight completely isolated rehearsal rooms in the basement. “The rehearsal spaces are rented out externally,” says Hauser. “That was a big challenge for the architects: how to integrate those rooms and have access to those rehearsal rooms without having access to the rest of the Kuppel building.
“Then the sound isolation of course is an issue. The venue hosts events in the foyer and bar and it was essential people at those events couldn’t hear the bands rehearsing downstairs. We had to make sure there was really high sound isolation between the rehearsal rooms and the upstairs.”
Going underground
The second, connected building, an annex to the main Kuppel, houses a ground floor restaurant that seats 100, and Nest Klub, the basement club with space for 180 people. In the top floors of the annex are offices for a rock and pop music coordination institution.
It was important for the team that the club provided a very different atmosphere to the welcoming feeling of entering the concert hall. “You open a door at the back of the smaller building, you go down a dark stairway and it’s something totally different, everything is black,” says Müller. “It’s still a great experience. The lighting is great, the acoustics are great, and it’s got a great DJ set up.”
Konnex was hired to handle the installation for the club. A stereo sound system left and right of the DJ booth was practically flush mounted to the acoustic treatment on the walls to save space in the small underground club space. Speakers are KV2 Audio’s SL series with each stack consisting of a pair of SL2.15 and one SL412, powered by KV2 amplifiers and a QD8 master equalizer to optimise the room response.
A pair of EX28s were installed as monitors for the DJ and Konnex also installed a Pioneer DJM-A9, two Pioneer CDJ-3000s and two Technics SL-1210 MK7s.

Photo credit: Dirk Noy, WSDG
The lighting set up here comprises an MA Lighting grandMA3 onPC rack unit, Showtec Shark - The Meg - Beam One moving head lights and Showtec Accent Spot SW fixtures.
Achieving sound isolation between the club, restaurant areas, and offices proved challenging, further complicated by strict limitations on the allowable weight of the concrete. The situation was helped by stacked opening times of each space that meant there was little overlap between the club and the other areas being operational at the same time. But care was taken to avoid sound leaking across the spaces and, post installation, acoustical measurements proved that the spaces were well isolated.
The truly remarkable aspect of Kuppel Basel’s transformation lies in the extraordinary collaboration between all parties involved, most notably the architect and technology teams. Technology providers often find architects resistant to the demands of AV and acoustic consideration. But Müller and his team at Vécsey*Schmidt Architekt*innen stood out for their proactive and informed approach. They demonstrated not just a willingness to incorporate technical needs, but a deep understanding of the challenges faced by consultants and engineers like WSDG and Konnex, particularly in crafting a venue that meets the stringent acoustic standards of its urban setting.

Photo credit: © Vécsey Schmidt Architekt:innen, Pati Grabowicz
This collaboration was vital over the long design and construction period, which required constant adjustments and recalibration to navigate evolving requirements. It’s a testament to the professionalism and shared vision of everyone involved that this cooperation not only endured but thrived, culminating in a venue that harmonises technical excellence with architectural beauty.
As Kreis says: “We really had the feeling of being one project, one goal. It was quite special.”
Top image credit: © Vécsey Schmidt Architekt:innen, Pati Grabowicz
Tech-Spec
Audio
Coda Audio APS arrays; SCN-F, G15, U4 and U12i subwoofers; N-APS, HOPS8 and D8 point source speakers; Cue Two stage monitors; and Linus 12D and 14C amplifiers
DPA microphones
KV2 Audio SL series and EX28 speakers, amplifiers and QD8 equalizer
Pioneer DJM-A9 mixer and CDJ-3000 multi players
Sennheiser microphones
Shure microphones
Symetrix Edge DSP
Technics SL-1210 MK7 turntables
Yamaha CL5 mixing console
Lighting
MA Lighting grandMA3 compact console and grandMA3 onPC rack unit
Martin Rush MH 5 profile moving heads
Robe LEDBeam 150 wash lighting and Cuete spotlights
Showtec LED Pinspot Q4 lights, Shark – The Meg – Beam One moving heads, and Accent Spot SW fixtures
Video
Panasonic PT-RZ120 laser projector