Guangzhou Opera House Opens: Zaha Hadid’s Two Pebbles on the Pearl River

The Guangzhou Opera House was inaugurated on 9 May 2010 with a performance of Puccini’s Turandot, and held an official opening ceremony in February 2011. Designed by Zaha Hadid, it was the architect’s first completed building in China, and it gives the capital of Guangdong a place among the country’s leading stages, with the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing and the Shanghai Grand Theatre.

The competition

Zaha Hadid Architects was chosen in November 2002 through an international competition in which Rem Koolhaas and Coop Himmelb(l)au were the other finalists. Ground was broken in January 2005 and the building was completed in 2010. Its cost is given as 1.38 billion yuan, and it won the RIBA International Award in 2011.

The design

The building consists of two separate volumes of different sizes. Hadid described them as two pebbles, rocks smoothed by the Pearl River, which flows past the site. The larger holds the main theatre, with 1,804 seats. The smaller holds a multi-purpose hall of 443 seats.

Each volume is a steel frame of triangular facets, clad in black and white granite and glass. Public paths and plazas on several levels let people move through the site outside performance hours. The total floor area is about 70,000 square metres.

The setting

The opera house stands in Zhujiang New Town, the new business and cultural district laid out along the river. It is close to other cultural buildings, and the towers of the financial district rise behind.

For travellers

The exterior and the plaza can be visited at any time, and the building is at its best at dusk. The interior is seen by attending a performance or on a guided tour when these are offered. The programme includes opera, ballet, concerts and musicals.

The area has since gained further museums: see our article on the new building of the Guangzhou Museum of Art. Hadid’s later hotel in Macau is described in Morpheus Opens in Macau. The Guangzhou page covers the rest of the city.