GUANGZHOU OPERA HOUSE
The 200 million dollar Opera House in the city of Guangzhou is the product of an international architectural competition with three renowned architecture offices invited to submit bids. It was the imagery and metaphors of Hadid‘s design for the competition held in 2002 that convinced the Chinese authorities. The two flowing building structures appear to be pebbles that have been smoothed into a round harmonious shape by the neighbouring Pearl River. The spectacular interior is designed as a man-made landscape with canyons, promontories and recesses, with the powers of erosion appearing to be responsible for their topographic shape. The groundbreaking ceremony took place in 2005, followed by the official opening in 2010 with the premiere production of Puccini‘s opera Turandot, a controversial opera in China. The Opera House is at the heart of Guangzhou’s cultural development in this city of 18 million people, and is located in the direct vicinity of the mighty towers of the financial district. Basically the opera house consists of two structures: the large 1,800-seat opera auditorium and a smaller 400-seat multi-function hall for concerts and performance art. Both structures are designed in the houses-within-houses principle as freestanding concrete constructions, completely covering the fascinatingly intricate, exposed steel frame. The freestanding structure of the exterior consists of giant star-shaped cast steel nodes, steel rods and bars covered with countless triangular elements on the outside. The three-dimensional design thus creates the soft, pebble external shape. But this came at huge cost: all the facets have different dimensions and curvatures so that every single one had to be made individually from glass and white granite, working with absolute precision. There is no cladding on the support structure on the inside so that it remains completely legible, underlining the dramatic interior with its sculptural staircases, swinging transitions and column-free foyers. Generously glazed, the exterior lets daylight penetrate right into the heart of the interior. In turn, at night the buildings which are surrounded by large spaces of water turn into amorphous structures that seem to glow mystically from the inside out. The interior reveals a very special kind of space aesthetics, with the open spaces between the terraced walkways acting as waterfall ravines, while this naturally shaped landscape analogy continues in the smooth transitions between disparate elements and different levels. But the main highlight is of course the large opera auditorium, with its organic flowing spaces reminiscent of the cavities caused by centuries of water erosion. Balconies protrude harmoniously into the auditorium like terraces and are reflected by the lobby walkways outside. Here multi- layered perspectives create their very own dimension of experience, generating that atmosphere of transitioning between the real world outside and the staged art on the inside that makes all great opera houses so special.
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