The shell is surrounded by a watery artificial lake with a total area of 35,500 square meters. The lake is like a crystal-clear mirror, where waves of light and reflections are intertwined and **** together to hold up the huge and crystalline building in the center.
The design concept of the artificial lake comes from the water system of the capital city, adding a dynamic water scene to the center of Beijing. The pool of the artificial lake uses a water circulation system to remove turbidity and does not freeze in winter or grow algae in summer.
The tranquil and clear water surface and the quiet and grand ellipsoidal shell are covered with a colorful art world full of infinite vitality and energy.
The National Grand Theater artificial lake waterproofing project closed water test all completed. It is understood that after the completion of the National Grand Theater, the artificial lake water storage will reach 14,000 cubic meters. At that time, the core section of Chang'an Street south will add beautiful water scenery. Artificial lake is surrounded by a total area of 39,000 square meters of green belt, green shade cut off the hustle and bustle of Chang'an Street, forming a large cultural and leisure plaza in the city center.
The design follows the idea of introducing natural gardens into the city, and the whole is in harmony with the main building of the Grand Theater, reflecting a moderate combination of hidden and visible, dense and sparse, and incorporating landscape design concepts such as multi-storey and clusters.
The Cultural Square allows the public to freely enter and wander around, opening up a piece of tranquility in the midst of the bustle for the surrounding residents.
The National Grand Theater has four theaters, the Opera House in the middle, the Concert Hall on the east side, the Drama Theater on the west side, and the Small Theater on the west side of the south gate, which are both completely independent and connected to each other through the sky corridor. In addition, there are many other facilities inside the building that are compatible with the theater. The Opera House is the grandest building in the National Grand Theater, with gorgeous and brilliant gold as its main color. It mainly stages operas, dance dramas, ballets and large-scale cultural performances.
The Opera House auditorium has a pool seat first floor and three floors of the building seat, *** there are 2,398 audience seats (including standing seats).
The Opera House has an advanced stage with the functions of pushing, pulling, ascending, descending and rotating, a tilting ballet stage board, and a lifting music pool that can accommodate a three-pipe orchestra. These world-leading stage machinery and equipment provide rich possibilities for artists' live performance.
Stage
The stage of the Opera House is in the form of a zigzag stage, including the main stage, the left and right side stages and the back stage.
The stage is equipped with five functions: pushing, pulling, raising, lowering and turning, which can quickly switch the scenery. The main stage has six lifting platforms, which can be lifted as a whole or individually. The left and right side stages each have six horizontally movable car platforms, which can switch scenes and also participate in performances by interchanging positions with the main stage lifting platforms.
Below the rear stage, 15 meters from the ground, there is a ballet stage board stored, the main stage lifting platform is lowered, the ballet stage can be moved to the main stage platform for ballet performances. This is the largest seamless, dedicated ballet stage board in the country, and the only tiltable ballet stage board in the country, which can be tilted up to 5.7 degrees. The surface is made of Oregon wood and is constructed in three layers to increase flexibility and maximize protection for the ballerina's toes.
The height of the roof above the stage is 32 meters, and the boom, lighting bridge, and lighting bridge are suspended in the air by wire ropes. 61 electric booms, 78 rail single-point cranes, and 24 free single-point cranes are used to hang the curtains and scenery pieces respectively. Light bridges, light crossings and light hangers embellish the 1,588 light fixtures used for performances above the stage of the Opera House, and the lighting is so responsive that it can change its shape in a matter of seconds. On the shell structure of the National Grand Theater, there are 506 "mushroom lights" installed. Unlike other buildings on Chang'an Street, which are brightly lit at night, the "mushroom lights" above the shell of the NCPA emit a little light, just like the twinkling stars in the night sky.
The Concert Pool
The Concert Pool of the Opera House covers an area of 120 square meters and can accommodate a 90-piece three-piece orchestra, or it can be raised to the level of the auditorium and turned into an auditorium.
In the orchestra pit, a special elevator is designed especially for the conductor, who can make his appearance and curtain call in this special way.
Walls
The Opera House has installed curved metal mesh on the walls so that the sound can penetrate through, while the wall behind the metal mesh is polygonal, thus forming a visual arc and a polygon of the auditory space, which achieves a perfect combination of architectural acoustics and theater aesthetics, and makes the reverberation time reach the excellent effect of 1.6 seconds. The Opera House is equipped with 6 single dressing suites, 6 single and double dressing rooms, 18 medium dressing rooms, 2 orchestra conductor's rest suites, 6 orchestra large dressing rooms and 8 practice piano rooms. The concert hall is white and solemn, the color style is quiet, fresh and elegant, to perform large-scale symphony, national music, taking into account other forms of musical performances.
Concert Hall auditorium around the stage, with the first floor of the pool seat and the second floor of the building seat, *** there are 2019 auditorium (including standing seats).
The concert hall has the largest pipe organ in China.
All architectural and decorative designs in the concert hall serve the acoustic effect, realizing the perfect combination of architectural aesthetics and acoustic aesthetics.
Performing Stage and Audience
The Concert Hall adopts an improved shoebox design according to the characteristics of concert performance, i.e., the seats are surrounded by the stage in the form of a perimeter, which puts the stage in the center of the theatre, so that the sound can be better diffused and spread.
The Concert Hall stage is located on the side of the pool seat, the stage is 24 meters wide and 15 meters deep, which can meet the 120-member four-barrel orchestra performance.
The concert stage consists of a fixed platform and three playing elevators. By controlling the height of the lifting platforms, a stepped playing surface can be formed, which will clearly show the performance of different instruments to the audience. The piano elevator at the front of the stage gently raises the grand piano into the audience's view.
To meet the needs of large-scale choral performances, the seats on the second floor of the auditorium at the back of the recital stage can be used by a 180-member chorus.
Pipe organ
Pipe organ placed in the concert hall has an elegant shape and full sound, which is the largest one in China with the largest volume, the largest number of pegs, the largest number of pipes and the richest sound, with 94 pegs and 6,500 pipes.
The organ comes from the German organ building family--Johannes Klaas, and the famous German Cologne Cathedral organ is from the same family, which can satisfy the needs of the performance of different genres of works.
The presence of the organ adds elegance to the concert hall, and is therefore figuratively referred to as the "treasure of the hall".
Ceiling
The ceiling of the Concert Hall is an abstract work of modern art, with irregularly shaped white reliefs resembling an undulating sand dune or a beach washed by waves.
The seemingly messy grooves on the ceiling are actually specially designed acoustically to diffuse and reflect the sound, making it more even and softer. The beautifully crafted ceilings are actually special sound-diffusing decorative panels.
The ceiling is made of fiber gypsum molding board, a heavy material that can effectively prevent low-frequency absorption and enhance the hall's low-frequency reverberation time, so that the bass effects (such as organ, tubas, cellos, etc.) are more powerful and infectious.
In order to achieve acoustic perfection, in the ceiling of the following also hangs a tortoise back shape of the centralized antiphonal plate, commonly known as the "tortoise back antiphonal plate", its role is to scatter the sound in all directions.
Walls
The walls around the stage of the concert hall use acoustic diffusion walls, which are like the keys of a standing piano, bumpy and irregularly arranged. The dimensions and shapes of the concave and convex walls are calculated mathematically and accurately to diffuse and reflect the sound coming from the stage, guaranteeing good self-hearing and mutual hearing for the performers, and facilitating the orchestra's performance.
The side walls of the Concert Hall feature sound-diffusing panels similar to those on the ceiling, with slightly uneven surfaces that have also been specially designed. The uneven texture of these panels allows the sound to be diffused and reflected evenly to every corner of the concert hall space.
With the combined effect of these customized designs, the reverberation time of the Concert Hall can reach 2.2 seconds of high-quality sound. The Drama Theater is the most ethnic theater of the NCPA, with Chinese red as the main color and silk walls to bring out a traditional and warm atmosphere. It mainly stages plays, Peking Opera, local operas and other performances.
The theater auditorium has a pool seat first floor and three floors of the building seat, **** there are 1035 seats (including standing seats).
The Drama Theater stage has advanced stage machinery and equipment that can turn unique creations into performing realities. Its unique outstretched stage lip design is very much in line with traditional Chinese theater performances.
Stage
The Drama Theater Stage has two styles: "Extended" and "Mirror Frame", which can be used according to the needs of the play. When the stage is "extended", the stage board at the front of the auditorium rises up to become part of the stage, forming an extended stage lip, so that the audience can watch the performances on the stage from a closer distance, which is very much in line with the characteristics of the traditional Chinese theater performances. When the platform is not raised, this part of the area can be used as a musical pool, then the stage looks like a mirror frame, so it is called "mirror frame" stage style.
The stage area of the theater is divided into the main stage and the left and right auxiliary stages. The main stage installed "drum cylinder" turntable, consisting of 13 lifting blocks and 2 lifting platforms, can be lifted as a whole and can be lifted separately, but also to create the stage effect of lifting and rotating, the whole set of stage machinery is in an advanced position in the world.
Walls
Theater auditorium walls with the concert hall stage walls similar to the sound diffusion wall, looks like a concave and undulating, irregularly arranged vertical bars. A large number of irregularly arranged concave and convex grooves as a whole to form a sound diffusion reflection, which can ensure the uniformity of the indoor sound field, so that the sound is more beautiful and beautiful.
The wall is wrapped with special silk cloth, forming a wall pattern that is mainly red, with yellow and purple arranged in between. Lighting on the wall, creating an intimate, warm and traditional atmosphere, creating a theater atmosphere of Chinese characteristics, but also play a very good sound-absorbing effect. The small theater is the most diverse possible multi-functional theater of the National Grand Theater, the overall color tone is fresh, elegant style, can be adapted to chamber music, small solo recitals, small theater drama, small theater opera, modern dance and other artistic disciplines of the performance.
Small theater auditorium *** with 19 rows, 556 seats (including movable seats). The small theater was completed in September 2009, October 2009 officially opened. Its inauguration not only further expands the performing arts function of the National Center for the Performing Arts, but also makes the performance function of the existing small theater cluster in Beijing more abundant.
Stage and Audience
The small theater adopts an end stage. The stage consists of two lifting platforms, which can be raised and lowered as a whole or separately as needed.
The soundproof wall behind the stage and the floor-to-ceiling tempered glass wall can be folded and contracted to the left and right ends. When the two walls are completely opened, the outdoor sunken plaza with an area of more than 500 square meters is presented as if it were a backyard, which can be used as a backdrop for the performance or directly incorporated into the performance as a stage, giving the artistic creators more room for imagination and play.
Audience seating*** counts 556 seats, which can be flexibly adjusted according to the repertoire, with 14 rows of electric retractable bleachers counting 411 seats and 5 rows of movable seats counting 145 seats.
Ceiling and Walls
The white embossed ceiling of the small theater is similar to that of a concert hall, and the sound diffusion wall is similar to that of a theater wall, together with the partition wall with heat preservation and acoustic effect, all the tailor-made designs can make the sound diffuse and reflect evenly and gently.