Harbin Opera House

In 2010 the design team won an international competition for a cultural island, a masterplan for an opera house, a cultural centre and the wetland landscape along a northern river. The sinuous opera house is the focal point of the island, with about 850,000 square feet of building on a site of 444 acres.

It holds a grand theatre for more than 1,600 people and a smaller theatre for 400. The curving facade of smooth white aluminium panels plays between edge and surface, softness and sharpness, like a landscape shaped by wind and snow.

In the grand lobby, large glass walls link the curving interior with the swooping facade and the plaza outside, and a crystalline glass curtain wall soars overhead. The grand theatre is lined in warm wood that wraps around the audience like a carved form.