Harpa (concert hall)
concert hall and conference center in Reykjavík, Iceland
Harpa (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈhar̥pa], English: Harp) is a concert hall and conference centre in Reykjavík, Iceland. The opening concert was held on 4 May 2011. The building features a distinctive colored glass façade inspired by the basalt landscape of Iceland.
History
Harpa was designed by the Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects in co-operation with Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The structure consists of a steel framework clad with geometric shaped glass panels of different colours. The building was part of a redevelopment of the Austurhöfn area dubbed World Trade Center Reykjavík, which was temporarily abandoned during the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis. The development included a 400-room hotel, luxury apartments, retail units, restaurants, a car park and the new headquarters of Icelandic bank Landsbanki.
Construction started in 2007 but was halted due to the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis. The completion of the structure was uncertain until the government decided in 2008 to fully fund the rest of the construction costs for the half-built concert hall. For several years it was the only construction project in existence in Iceland.
“Harpa (concert hall)” enters the record as concert hall and conference center in Reykjavík, Iceland. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harpa, concert and hall can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Harpa (concert hall)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Harpa, concert and hall provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1783706. VIAF identifies the subject as 305245658. Authority coordinates are 64.150, -21.933. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2008 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harpa (concert hall)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.