The new building complex, designed like a pavilion with an overhanging roof, houses an opera house for 1,600 visitors, a concert hall providing 1,200 seats as well as a smaller multi-functional hall with 400 seats, all spread across a floor area of 60,000 square meters. In addition, a museum and a hotel are available for the concert house’s guests from abroad.

Attractive Location by the Yellow Sea

No other foreign architectural firm has realized as many large-scale projects in China as gmp. Along with the concert hall in Chongqing in central China, completed in 2009, and the opera house opened in Qingdao (speak: Tsingtau) at the end of 2010, they now have had two buildings of that kind completed in China.

A peculiarity of the harbor city, formerly under German command, is its unique location between the Yellow Sea and the Laoshan mountains, steeply ascending up to 1,000 meters. Based on this charming topography, the architects developed a transparent, seemingly floating complex with four diamond-shaped individual structures. A segmental arch roof, hanging over and organically curved at the sides, connects the various volumes together to form a sculptural whole. The ensemble’s elegant airiness is emphasized by the integration of large glass areas and the deployment of bright, almost white natural stone for the façades and outdoor areas.

First-Class Equipment

The opera house itself is accessed by two large flights of stairs towards the South and the North, meeting at the core of the complex to form a roofed area with a flowing transition between the inside and the outside. Via an airy lobby providing a free view across the sea, the visitors get into the stage hall, held in red, with its organically curved tiers. The second flight of stairs leads to a concert and multi-functional hall adjacent to the East gmp have combined together to form a whole volume. The ensemble is completed by two smaller structures for the hotel and the museum. Together, the two different functions form a harmonious whole, integrated into its surroundings as if totally natural, providing a well-made architectural role model through its elegant airiness in a country with an otherwise authoritarian mentality.