Dubai Opera House Building, Downtown Arts Venue Images, Architect, Seven Pearls District

Dubai Opera House Building

Contemporary Concert Hall Architecture in UAE design by Zaha Hadid architect, London, UK

15 Apr 2009

Dubai Opera House Building News

Reports in the Press that this project is on hold, as are many in UAE.

Developer Sama Dubai recently merged with Dubai Properties and received a £6.9 billion government bailout.

Information Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects

Dubai Opera House – Introduction

Design: Zaha Hadid Architects

The Dubai Opera House design calls for an exciting new cultural centre in the new Seven Pearls district of Dubai. This landmark development will accommodate an opera house, playhouse, arts gallery, performing arts school and themed hotel on an island in Dubai Creek just off the mainland part of the district.

All of these facilities will be state-of-the-art to host world class performances and exhibitions. The Dubai Opera House will have a seating capacity of 2,500 while the playhouse will have a seating capacity of 800. The arts gallery with 5000m2 of exhibition space is indeed a full size exhibition facility comparable to the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The hotel will accommodate guests in a 6 star setting. Sited on an island in Dubai Creek, the development will be connected to Greater Dubai by a road connection to the mainland.

Design Concept and Programme Organisation

The Dubai Opera House proposal houses all of the facilities within a single striking structure. The gentle winding form evokes images of mountains or sand dunes. Rising out of the ground, this form is both a part of the landscape yet very much a distinct element in the skyline. The surrounding landscape forms build up to the main building. These constitute open park spaces as well as ancillary functions such as the parking facilities and the monorail station, which are either tucked under or integrated into the landscape forms.

The two peaks correspond to the opera house and the playhouse. The tall requirements of the fly towers are nested under these peaks. From these peaks, the Dubai Opera House form gradually swoops down to touch the earth.

The form is scalloped away where the three major entrances are to be found. The main entrances for audiences visiting either of the two performing arts auditoria are on the north side of the building. At the ground level will be the VIP entrance with car drop off right at the entrance and a separate foyer from the main foyer. This foyer serves both the opera house and the playhouse.

The main foyer is a gentle multi-tiered landscape at one floor above the ground floor. It also serves the opera house and the playhouse as well as having an interior connection to the arts gallery. Floating above this foyer are further foyer spaces serving the balcony levels. The foyer levels from the main foyer level up are visually connected to each other through a series of voids. This allows for direct views between the main foyer at the first floor all the way up to the highest balcony foyer. Surprising views are abundant in this space.

The Dubai Opera House auditoria are contained in flowing shapes that seem to emerge from the underside of the main shell. This inner shell however, does not quite touch the main shell. Instead, the two surfaces disappear into a light gap between them. Supporting functions found off the foyer are defined by walls that merge into the underside of the main shell.

Dubai Opera Houe & Cultural Centre, Dubai, UAE – Building Information

Date: 2006-tbc
Program: Design for a Cultural Centre and Opera House in Dubai
Architect: Design Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Project Director: Graham Modlen
Project Leader: Dillon Lin

Design Team: Christine Chow, Lourdes Sanchez, Yiching Liu, Swati Sharma,
Tyen Masten, Simone Fuchs, Johannes Schafelner
Competition Team: Christine Chow, Lourdes Sanchez, Yiching Liu, Larissa Henke, Claudia Wulf, Hooman Talebi, Daniel Dendra, Simon Yu, Komal Talreja
Engineering Consultant: Arup, London, UK
Acoustics Consultant: Richard Cowell, Ian Knowles
Structural Engineering: Keith Jones
Building Services Engineers: Tim Thornton
Façade Engineering: Steve Bos

Dubai Opera House images + information from Zaha Hadid Architects 230608

Dubai Opera House architect : Zaha Hadid, London, England

Location: Downtown, Dubai, UAE