History
"I like to think of my buildings as my children. The KKL Luzern is my first, very, very beautiful international child."
Jean Nouvel, Architect of KKL Luzern
25th anniversary
The Concert Hall was opened on 18 August 1998 with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, the Lucerne Trumpet Ensemble and the then President of the Swiss Confederation, Flavio Cotti. The following day, the opening concert of the Lucerne International Music Festival (now the Lucerne Festival) took place with conductor Claudio Abado and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Wings A and B were also opened in March 2000 and the Lucerne Art Museum in June. The RED and World Café restaurants followed in 2004. In 2016, or more than 17 years after opening, the KKL Luzern exceeded the billion mark in terms of added value for the first time. Every year, the KKL Luzern generates around 75 million Swiss francs in added value for the city and region of Lucerne, as the HSG calculated in its 2011 added value study. Philipp Keller has been CEO of KKL Luzern Management AG since 2017. The current President of the KKL Foundation, Markus Moll, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Felix Howald, have both been in office since 2019. The restaurants Le Piaf and Lucide were opened in 2020. The Lucide restaurant has been awarded 16 Gault Millau points and one Michelin star. The coronavirus pandemic hit the KKL Luzern hard. For almost two years, events were only possible to a limited extent or not at all. The culinary facilities had to be partially or completely closed again and again. In February 2022, almost all measures were lifted and operations could resume in all business areas. The year 2023, the year of the 25th anniversary, was the first in which the company was fully operational again and achieved a very successful result.
In 1980, the poor structural condition of the old culture and congress centre, designed by architect Armin Meili in 1933/1934, became known. In the subsequent architectural competition, Jean Nouvel and Emmanuel Cattani win the contract for a new concert hall in Lucerne. Management consultant Thomas Held becomes overall coordinator of the cultural area. At the request of the International Music Festival, the acoustician Russell Johnson from New York was brought in in 1992. In 1993, the government of the city and canton of Lucerne and then in 1994 the voters of the city of Lucerne approved the costs of 94 million francs for the construction of a new culture and congress centre. On 21 January 1995, the ground-breaking ceremony is celebrated. Two years before the opening, KKL Luzern Management AG was founded in 1996.
