Guangzhou Opera House

Guangzhou's Central Business District, a new city of 14 million people, is a well carved cultivated pearl on China's worldwide public relations necklace. Zaha Hadid's twin "boulder" opera house overlooks the Pearl River and is inspired by river stones. The Opera House's main freestanding concrete 1,800-seat performance hall is paired with a separate 400-seat multipurpose performance space. It is an anti-Cartesian, asymmetric, atavistic "cave" or "grotto" within an expressive steel skeleton skin of multifaceted granite tessellations interrupted by glass prisms. There are rarely straight lines in "gravity-defying" foyers; the nonlinear technique prepares spectators for the dream of performance. A cluster of spotlights brightens the scene. Acoustics are crucial.

The design of Hadid's hall complements the different sounds of Western and Chinese opera, according to the acoustician who worked on this project. Guangzhou Opera House, which debuted in 2010 and is an undeniable icon, remains what it was designed to be: a destination. The theatre has grown to be the largest performing arts center in southern China, as well as one of the country's three largest, alongside Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts and Shanghai's Shanghai Grand Theatre. In May 2010, American director Shahar Stroh directed the opera house's first production: Puccini's opera Turandot, which had previously been a contentious opera in China.

Location: Guangzhou, People's Republic of China