National Grand Theater of China

The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), informally known as The Giant Egg, is an arts center with an opera house in Beijing's Xicheng District, People's Republic of China. The NCPA, designed by French architect Paul Andreu, debuted in 2007 and is Asia's largest theatre complex. China's National Theater quickly became a polarizing structure, beloved by some for its unique architecture and novel approach to supporting the arts and reviled by many for its massive expenditure and probably inapt location. While many Western architects have relatively free reign in China at the request of their customers, China's old metropolitan centers are being irreversibly changed, creating cultural conflicts that will undoubtedly linger for decades.

The spherical glass and titanium shell holds three distinct venues in what the architect calls a "city of theaters": a 2,461-seat opera house, a 2,017-seat concert hall, and a 1,040-seat theater, as well as several exhibition spaces, cafés, and shopping areas. These interior structures and places are shown to the outside world in the evening through the glass external wall. From the exterior, the curving form appears to float in an artificial lake that entirely surrounds the structure, which is peeled back in the middle to imitate an opening stage curtain. Underground walkways provide access to the building, which was finished in 2007.

Location: No.2 West Chang'an Avenue, Xicheng District, Beijing, China