But the €390m question is: what does the hall sound like, with its "new typology" of acoustic space for a concert hall, according to the acousticians Marshall Day, floating the entire auditorium inside a reverberating chamber of extra volume?
The voice of Penelope rises like a wail and floats across the auditorium, filling it with longing; the lights fade and the displaced disappear from view.
In addition to the floating screen, there is a "raft-like auditorium" where the viewers -- who must arrive by boat -- can relax on large cushions and take in the film.
In the Grande Salle, the Philharmonie's main auditorium, listeners are seated in the round, with podlike balconies floating above a square-shaped stage.
Even jaded elders might find themselves grabbing at pieces of food or equipment that float out into the auditorium.
More than a whiff of marijuana floated through the packed auditorium as a large Welsh contingent in the audience joined in.
Members of Les Percussions de Strasbourg in France played bowls floating upside down in water, cracked a whip and, standing at the back of the auditorium, entered into rhythmic contests with performers playing the duduk, the didjeridu and the conch shell onstage.
The buildings are steel-frame boxes clad in dark stone tiles, with floating concrete cores — in effect, boxes within the boxes with reading rooms, a child-care center, an auditorium and other facilities.
While I stood in an actual auditorium on campus, live video of my talk was streamed on screens on a cube floating over an artificial amphitheater, bathed in late-afternoon sunshine, on the university's Second Life "island".
