Wuxi Grand Theatre is one of the key cultural projects in

Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city ar ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

.http://en.chinawuxi.gov.cn/web111/TravelinWuxi/Culture/WuxiGrandTheatre/902766.shtml Wuxi Grand Theater stands on the south bank of Taihu Lake and covers a total area of more than 70,000 square meters. The building is designed by Finnish architect

Pekka Salminen Pekka Salminen (born 11 August 1937 in Tampere) is a Finnish Professor of Architecture and founder and a senior partner of PES-Architects, formed in 1968, in Helsinki, Finland. He is also the founder of Unije Workshop International UWI, and the ...

On the architecture

The main idea of Wuxi Grand Theatre is based on its location. The manmade peninsula on the northern shore area of Taihu Lake and the highway bridge nearby make this location comparable to that of

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

. Due to this location the building is an impressive landmark, rising up to a total height of 50 meters like a big sculpture from the terraced base. Its eight gigantic roof wings stretch far over the facades, giving the building a character of a butterfly, while protecting the building from the heat of the sun. The architectural concept is unique: inside the steel wings are thousands of

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...

lights, which make it possible to change the colour of the wings according to the character of the performances. This is possible, because the underside of the wings is covered by perforated aluminium panels. Another special feature is the “forest” of 50 light columns, each 9 meter high, which start from the main entrance square, support the roof of the central lobby and continue outside of the lakeside entrance into the lake. A strong Chinese feature that runs throughout the whole building is the large scale use of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

, both a traditional and a modern Chinese material. Recently new methods for the production and use of bamboo have made it possible to cover the Main Theatre Auditorium with over fifteen thousand solid bamboo blocks, all individually shaped according to acoustic needs and architectural image. The Main Auditorium counts 1680 seats split up in main stalls and two balconies. The horseshoe shape and compact volume combined with variable acoustics creates a flexible venue which can host traditional western style operas, Chinese operas, theatre performances, classical concerts, and even conferences. The main auditorium is combined with a smaller 700-seat auditorium which is designed as a multifunctional black box theatre with retractable seats and multiple options for seating layout.

References

External links

Information and pictures on PES Architects website
{{coord, 31.5169, 120.2745, type:landmark_region:CN, display=title Culture in Wuxi Buildings and structures in Wuxi