Harpa

Walk in on a sunny afternoon and the whole foyer is lit up in patches of yellow, green and blue, bouncing off the walls from a facade made of glass bricks. Walk in on a dark winter evening and the building glows the other way, lit from the inside, flickering across the harbour. Either way, you'll end up looking up.

Harpa is Reykjavík's concert hall and conference centre, right on the harbour in central Reykjavík, Iceland. It opened in 2011, designed by Henning Larsen Architects together with the artist Ólafur Elíasson, whose glass facade is inspired by the basalt columns you'll find along the Icelandic coast. It's home to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and hosts everything from classical concerts to jazz, pop and comedy. Construction was well under way when Iceland's banks collapsed in 2008, and the state and city stepped in to finish it. Today it's hard to imagine the city without it.

Tours that visit Harpa

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Reykjavik Walking Tour small group - CityWalk

2 hours and 30 minutes · From Reykjavík

4.9(5,250)

From 5.480 ISK

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Walk with a Viking - Reykjavik Walking Tour - Small group

2 hours · From Reykjavík

4.8(1,129)

From 7.365 ISK

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Whale Watching & Dolphin Yacht Cruise

3 hours and 30 minutes · From Reykjavík

4.5(519)

From 13.490 ISK

Northern Lights Yacht Cruise

2 hours and 30 minutes · From Reykjavík

4.1(35)

From 12.990 ISK

New Year's Eve Yacht Cruise

1 hour and 30 minutes · From Reykjavík

4.5(265)

From 22.500 ISK

Private 3 hour Reykjavik Driving Tour

3 hours · From Reykjavík

From 99.900 ISK

Is Harpa free to visit?

Yes. The public areas are free to walk into, and you don't need a concert ticket to have a look around. Harpa is usually open from 10:00 until 18:00 on Sundays to Tuesdays and until 20:00 from Wednesday to Saturday, and later when there's an event. Take the stairs up through the foyers for views across the harbour to Mount Esja. There's a design shop, a couple of places to eat, and guided tours of the building if you want to see behind the doors.

Concerts at Harpa

If you get the chance, see something in Eldborg, the main concert hall, which is lined in deep red and has excellent acoustics. The Iceland Symphony Orchestra plays a regular season, and touring shows, festivals and local bands fill the other halls. The box office is inside the building, and the full programme is on harpa.is. Tickets for popular concerts sell out, so book ahead.

Pro tip: walk around the outside after dark. The facade has lights built into the glass that change colour and pattern, and from the Sun Voyager sculpture, a few minutes' walk east along the seafront, you get Harpa on one side and Mount Esja on the other.

What to do near Harpa

Harpa is a few minutes' walk from the Old Harbour, where whale-watching boats, puffin trips and northern lights cruises leave from. Downtown Reykjavík and Laugavegur are just across the road, and Hallgrímskirkja is about 15 minutes uphill on foot. Allow 30 minutes for a quick look inside, more if you have a coffee or catch a show. Harpa also hosts some of Reykjavík's bigger events through the year, so on a festival weekend the foyers can be packed. That's part of the fun. The harbourfront walk from Harpa past the fishing boats and the old warehouses, now full of restaurants and museums, is one of the nicest short strolls in the city, rain or shine.

Many of the tours on this page start right by Harpa or at the harbour next door, from whale watching and yacht cruises to food walks and city walking tours. Tours that include Harpa are below.