ArcHiT3cT: Paul Andreu. The Egg.

By John de Guzman on August 13, 2008 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) |

There are a lot of Tall Building posts on HAWTaction, but where's the love for the little guys? We find them here, in the ArcHiT3cT: series where we profile outstanding architects whose works don't fall under the Tall Building parameters. Enjoy the works of architects like Zaha Hadid, Santiago Calatrava, Herzog and de Meuron, Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry... Oh, this is going to be a fun series.

There's a buzz about China's architecture right now, mainly because China is crawling out of its conservative stylings and embracing modern structures that are causing drool at HAWTaction headquarters. This evolution is apparent in some of the 53 new buildings that shot up to support the Olympics. While CCTV and TVCC Towers, Bird's Nest and Water Cube were being built, Paul Andreu brought a new Opera House to Beijing (I promise ArcHiT3cT series won't be opera house exclusive). It's nickname is the Egg.

Holy shmoley. That is some building. The dome has no angles or beams and soars The 212 meters in east-west direction (695 feet), 144 meters in north-south direction (472 feet) and is 46 meters high (151 feet). It's 200,000 m² in size (2.15 million square feet).

Paul Andreu's work usually comes in the form of an airport, but this time, he dropped out a truly beautiful... well... non-airport. The first thing that's amazing about this building is its surroundings. This modern building sits right int he middle of Beijing, flanked by the Great Hall of the People, Tian'anmen Square and the ancient Forbidden City. Holy moly. China's shaking things up.

That is the Egg peeping out behind the Forbidden City with the Great Hall of People to the left.

The first oddity is to point out that this building has no doors or windows that open. That shell is rigid and sassy. How to enter the building, then? Why, how about walking beneath a still pool of tranquil water?

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Holy moly. That is some sass. And what are they walking to? Well, the National Grand Theater has three main halls: the 2,398-seat Opera House, the 2,019-seat Concert Hall and the 1,035-seat Theater. No punches were pulled when decorating.

Opera House

Concert hall

Theater

In the main hall alone, the flooring is made of ten very different colored marbles from around China. The interior walls are warmed by a massive lattice work of rich Brazilian rose wood. A huge floor-to-ceiling glass curtain comprised of 6,355 m2 (68,400 ft2) of insulated laminated glass gives audiences a view of the city, whether in sunlight or twilight. That "curtain" looks like this.

In addition, the Egg has a few auxiliary spaces, collectively called the Fifth Space, that include the underwater corridor, the Olive Hall, an exhibition gallery, a resource center, a press room, a terrace lounge, souvenir shops and cafes.

Underwater corridor

Olive Hall

Blossom Hall

Cafe

Rosewood-dome

If you want details on the marble, click here and scroll down to "A Land of Enchanting Beauty."

Before I throw up additional photos, controversy must be discussed. The New Yorker's Alex Ross covered his experience at the Egg in Symphony of Millions, and it wasn't favorable.

"As architecture, the building may live up to its pompous billing, but, as a place for music, the Egg is problematic. There are two main halls: the opera house, which seats twenty-four hundred, and the concert hall, which seats two thousand. The concert hall has reasonably clear acoustics but lacks warmth. In the top gallery of the opera house, where the sound should be best, the orchestra comes across as tinny and colorless. There is little evidence that musical considerations played a role in the design. No serious acoustician would have approved the halls’ pockets of extra space, where sound bounces around and gets lost."

Form of the building should come second to function, and it appears those might have been reversed. Pity there's a bruise on the Egg, because the form is second to none. After ten months of usage, I'm hoping the egg is revitalizing downtown Beijing. Here are some more photos to drool over.