Kristiansund Operahouse Norway, Norwegian Culture House, Brisac Gonzalez Architect Design
Kristiansund Operahouse, Norway Building
Norwegian Culture House design by Brisac Gonzalez Architects / Space Group
20 Aug 2010
Opera and Culture House Kristiansund
Design: Brisac Gonzalez (UK) / Space Group (Norway)
image : luxigon
Kristiansund Opera and Culture House
The New Opera and culture house amalgamates opera, library, school, cultural facilities, and youth center. The complex represents culture in its most pervasive and innovative form. To create spaces for the unexpected, spaces to inspire us, spaces where the collective and individual can coexist, to inspire experimentation, invention, heterogeneity and freedom is to liberate culture.
pictures : luxigon
SITE
There are already two significant buildings on the site – a 19th century school building and an early 20th century Folkets Hus (People’s House). To engulf them by a third larger building would diminish their integrity. The design strategy creates a porous cultural compound of three very different free standing buildings that are autonomous yet connected.
The two existing buildings will be fully refurbished and filled with a host of new activities. A ribbon-like glass bridge that doubles as exhibition gallery connects the library in the Folkets Hus to the main foyer of the new building. The school building will contain youth cultural activities. An underground passage will link it to the stage level of the new auditorium.
images : Brisac Gonzalez + spacegroup
RED CARPET
Inside the new building the public circulation route serves as collective space open for an array of speculative activities. A procession of movement from entry to restaurant, via the red carpeted circuit that weaves it way through the building, reveals at once both the rich interior setting and views of Kristiansund.
THE HALL
The objective for the auditorium is simple: allow for the greatest number of guests to be as close as possible to the stage. From the stage, the performers will see an ocean of people, wall-to-wall.
The multi-purpose hall, driven by the demand for flexibility, is often the victim to the paradoxes of big- small, invisible-exposed, functional-beautiful. The design of this hall is one were flexibility exists without succumbing to the generic.
images : Brisac Gonzalez + spacegroup
ROOM WITH A VIEW
On the top floor of the new building restaurant, canteen and orchestra rehearsal room can be combined to create a very large room with spectacular views. An expansive exterior terrace adds greater flexibility in a setting where different scenarios, be they planned, impromptu, or incidental can occur.
FACADE
The façade of the new building is curtain-like, selectively revealing the activities within. From the exterior, the perception is of a soft dress, covered in small reflective sequins, shimmering, constantly changing, and flowing. From the inside, the lighting varies from translucent to transparent, providing an even light throughout the building.
images : Brisac Gonzalez + spacegroup
Kristiansund Operahouse – Building Information
Name of project: Opera and Culture House
Client: Kristiansund Kommune
Location: Kristiansund, Norway
Program: New Opera and Culture House, comprising a 600 seat auditorium, symphony, ballet center, restaurant, library, school, conference hall, cultural facilities and youth center.
Surface area: 15 000 m²
Cost: Confidential
Design Period: 2010
Architects
Brisac Gonzalez
Edgar Gonzalez, Cécile Brisac, João Baptista, Eleftherios Ambatzis, Husain Jaorawala, Miguel Goncalves, Gordon Swapp, Franck Lebouc-Mazé
Space Group
Gary Bates, Gro Bonesmo, Adam Kurdahl, Wenche Andreassen, Gesine Gummi, Ingjerd Sandven Kleivan, Naofumi Namba, Jens Noach, Erich Gerlach, Sassi Heiskanen, Tudor Vlasceanu, Jens Niehues, Rebekah Schaberg
Design teams Structural Engineer
Albert Taylor, Paul Scott, Rob Partridge, Clemens Neugart
Atelier 10: Services, Environmental
Rudolf Duncan-Bosu
Norconsult as / Akustikon: Acoustics
Enno Swets, Jan-Inge Gustafsson
Ducks Sceno: Theatre Consultant
Michel Cova, Frans Swarte, Alina Delgadillo, Analyse Duperrier
Sundt & Thomassen AS: Landscape
Trygve Sundt, Marianne Thomassen, Knut Andreas Øyvang
Atkins: Logistics
Luxigon: Visualisations
Eric de Broche des Combes, Laurent Ménabe
images : Brisac Gonzalez + spacegroup
Kristiansund Operahouse Norway images / information from Brisac Gonzalez Architects
Kristiansund Opera Culture Centre, Norway
C. F. Møller Architects win
27 May 2021
New Opera and Culture Centre in Kristiansund, Norway
image : C.F. Møller Architects (skyfish.com)
New Opera and Culture Centre in Kristiansund
Location: Kristiansund, Norway, northern Europe
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