Polish Royal Opera
An airy pavilion-like structure lightly sits in the green park - its soft shape allows park and building to mediate.
Name
Polish Royal Opera
Client
Polska Opera Królewska, Warszawa
Status
Competition Entry, Honourable Mention
Time span
Unbuilt
Location
Warsaw, Poland
Size
16.845 m2
Type
Culture
Budget
55.000.000 EUR
Partner in charge:
Thomas Bossel
Mads Rudi Lassen
PAX Team:
Andrea Margadji
Mathias Kruse Jacobsen
Mathias Brockdorff
Architecture:
PAX Architects
Schmidt/Hammer/Lassen Architects
Visualizations:
KVANT1
Landscape:
DETBLÅ
Engineering:
Arup
Consultants:
Nagata Acoustics
Ducks scéno
Collaborators:
Dedeco
The proposal for the Polish Royal Opera reveals the building as a gentle light structure enclosed by tall old trees in one of Warsaw’s historical parks.
An airy pavilion-like structure lightly sits in the green park - its soft shape allows park and building to mediate. The foyer space is organized as a fluid space all around the façade, which creates a welcoming building connecting with the park. The curved shape of the building embraces the park and creates green pockets along the façade, thus visitors of the opera, as well as the public, can enjoy and use the venue.
– A democratic gesture in the park.
The new Polish Royal Opera is envisioned as a spectacle, where nature is the performance, and the building is its set. The design not only serves as a response to the demands for a ”state of the art” opera, but equally to its unique natural and cultural surrounding landscape. Working within the terminology of classical music, the proposal offers a structure as airy as an aria, and as persuasive as an obbligato in relieving the principal demand for chamber, symphonic, and opera performances. Mindful of the lush environment that surrounds it, the design creates a stage for dynamic interactions, where history meets the future, culture intertwines with society, the park converges with the city, and people, art, and nature come together to form a deeply immersive and elevated experience.
In offering a space for modern performances where paramount technology co-exists with the historical setting at a unique site in the city of Warsaw, the new opera building presents an opportunity to endow the city with a contemporary symphony of greenery, history, and artistry. It is an opera and monument in a singular form that grants a new space with state-of-the-art performance facilities and a green public realm for the city and for people visiting from afar.
At its essence, the proposal is a celebration of opera as a timeless art form, rejuvenated through innovative design with the purpose of cultivating a platform for cultural enrichment and excellence, organically emerging amidst the lush green landscape and effectively translating the essence of opera into a physical structure. A building that in its form is in reverence of the past whilst existing for the future, opening the grand drapes for the cultural scene to each and every one.
The foyer space is organized as a fluid space all around the façade,which creates a welcoming building connecting with the park.
The curved shapeof the building embraces the park and creates green pockets along the façade,thus visitors of the opera, as well as the public, can enjoy and use the venue.– A democratic gesture in the park.
The ground floor highly relates to its surroundings - creating a foyer space and public space along the undulated facade.
The foyer, wrapping around the interior of the Opera House, creates a dynamic space created between the massive wooden core - the heart of the Opera House - and the light, airy façade.
The undulating shape of the façade, harmonizing with the vertical rhythm of the trees, filters the light coming inside, emphasizing the close interior-exterior - foyer-park relationship. From the balconies around the hall are curated and framed views to the park, generating a connection to the place.
The main entrance gently invites its visitors via the canopy and the paved paths in the park.
The foyer space and main entrance is orientated towards the green lush park. The beautiful colors of the park change through the seasons - a show before the show, where the natural scenery is a part of the experience of the opera.
The play of light and shadow in the building creates a common rhythm
- the impression of unity and interdependence of the foyer and park interior.
