The Barenboim-Said Academy offers young musicians from the Near and Middle East a four-year course of studies for a degree in music. In 2012, the city of Berlin leased the former scenery depot of the Berlin State Opera to the founder of the academy, Daniel Barenboim, for this new institution.

Erected originally between 1952 and 1955 to plans by Richard Paulick, the building was like a stack of shelving in historical clothing. Its unusual structure, with concrete cross-walls at five-metre spacings, is still recognizable today in the western part of the development. Here, the Berlin office of HG Merz incorporated a number of small rehearsal and seminar spaces. At the centre of the complex, an atrium was created that extends over the full height of the building and is topped by a new glazed roof.

Frank O. Gehry and the Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota were entrusted with the design of the actual concert hall. The eastern half of the building was completely gutted, and the outer skin was strengthened internally with reinforced concrete walls, which also bear the load of the oval gallery. The latter spans the hall in a bridge-like form without supporting columns, its axis turned slightly out of line from the rectilinear walls.