UK agency Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has been chosen to design a cultural centre for the worldwide productions of opera, dance and drama in Zhejiang, about 30km south of Shanghai.
The Zhejiang Shaoxing Shangyu District Cao‘e River Tradition and Artwork Centre will include a 1,400-seat grand theatre, a 500-seat black-box corridor, a 2,900 sq m arts and schooling space, 3,000 sq m convention area, 7,500 sq m heritage museum and a ten,000 sq m digital artwork gallery.
The outside accommodates sheltered courtyards with terraced landscapes and gardens that stretch into Shaoxing and onto the banks of the Cao‘e River.
The design for the white interconnected roofs is impressed by the encircling space’s vernacular fashion of glazed tiles fixed to pitched roofs, as are the façades, which reference the jade-green Celadon ceramics that date to the Northern Tune Dynasty, some 1,200 years in the past.
Photo voltaic evaluation dictated the geometry of the roofs’ to maximise shade, shelter and solar energy.
The tradition and artwork centre would be the cornerstone of a cultural quarter throughout the Shangyu District of Shaoxing.
