Shenzhen Concert Hall

This guide to Shenzhen Concert Hall opens on one of its first nights, when conductor Yu Feng raised his baton to a hall still shuffling in thirty minutes late, with children fussing and phones ringing -- and had to lower it, twice, before beginning. It sets that moment against the building itself: a canyon-terraced, acoustically tuned Symphony Hall designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Arata Isozaki, opened in October 2007 in a city still working out who it was. You'll notice the glass facade Isozaki meant to glow like a diamond after dark.