The Pierre-Boulez-Saal was inserted into a historic scenery warehouse in the Mitte district in Berlin, in the same block as the historic Berlin State Opera. The opera's Music Director, Daniel Barenboim, planned to use the building as a college-level educational institution, with music as a major focus of the curriculum. The hall is a place for rehearsal by the students of the Akademie as well as the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (also led and founded by Barenboim), and is also a public venue for musical performances.

The hall was designed by Frank Gehry to fit within the existing building envelope, which provided a space roughly 82 feet square and 46 feet tall. The performers are typically placed at the center of the hall, surrounded equally on all sides by the audience. With three rows of loose chairs and five rows of seats on retractable risers for multiple performance configurations, all audience members are in intimate contact with the performers. A balcony with two rows floats above the audience, providing a dramatic view to the performers below and a unique acoustical sensation of being in a much larger volume. The entire volume of the space is used effectively for the acoustics, since the curved balcony touches the wall in only limited locations, thus allowing the corners to fully contribute to the acoustical impression.