New concert hall on the Elbe

The mayor of Hamburg, Germany, laid the foundation stone Monday for the new Elbe Philharmonic concert hall, a spectacular glass-fronted structure that will tower over the city’s harbor.

Based on plans by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron -- who transformed a disused power station into London’s Tate Modern art museum -- the $322-million building should be completed in 2010.

The futuristic new complex will stand on top of an old coffee warehouse at the end of a spit of land that juts out into the Elbe river at one end of Hamburg’s busy harbor. It will be 360 feet tall.