Henning Larsen designed the white angular volumes of Hangzhou Yuhang Opera to look like ice floes on a lake.The waterfront performance venue
in Hangzhou, China, contains a 1,400-seat auditorium, a 500-seat black
box theatre, and an exhibition centre. Henning Larsen completed the
building in May and it is now open to the public.To get more
hangzhou news, you can visit shine news official website.
The white facade of the cultural centre in Hangzhou, China, is punctuated
with geometric windows designed to create a pattern like cracked ice on a
frozen lake. Two sloping white volumes that are designed to look like
ice form the opera house, with roofs that touch the ground at the place
where they meet on a public plaza.One side of the black box theatre can
be opened to the plaza, transforming the space into an open air venue
with the capacity for 10,000 people.
Visitors can walk up the roofs for a view out over the lake that the opera house stands
alongside.Mirroring the city's existing West Lake, the new body of water
both reflects the opera house and provides a pleasant outdoor space for
the city's residents. "There is a competition amongst Chinese cities to
create new destinations, each with their iconic cultural landmarks,"
said Claude Godefroy, design director at Henning Larsen's Hong Kong
office."When designing those cultural nodes our most important task is
to create truly lively urban centres that can welcome citizens at all
times whether they are paying guests or not.
" A promenade rings the lake, which is dotted with retail spaces and pocket parks – including a
traditional Chinese water garden. Inside, a walkway connects both
entrances around the auditorium and the foyer, with interior balconies
and staircases to maximise views inside the building and out over the
lake.The Hangzhou Yuhang Opera was designed in collaboration with
Hangzhou Architectural & Civil Engineering Design Institute and Buro
Happold.
Bassinet Turquin Paysage and AECOM worked on the landscape design. Other landmark cultural projects underway in China include
Snøhetta's plans for the Shanghai Grand Opera House, which includes a
spiral staircase roof, and the recently opened arts centre in Fuzhou
that is formed of five volumes shaped like flower petals.Danish
architect Henning Larsen founded his practice in 1959 and run the studio
until he passed away in 2013. Recent projects include plans to extend
an opera house in Paris, and rebuilding a town hall for a town that is
being relocated in Sweden before it's swallowed by an underground
mine.
