Catalog - Introduction
-Overview
-Lighting
-Stage
-Audience
-The Best of the NCPA
-List of the Artistic Committees of the NCPA
-Designer's Briefing
-Controversy and Criticism
Introduction
The National Grand Theater of China (NCPA) is located in the west of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, south of West Chang'an Street, and consists of the main building of the NCPA as well as the underwater promenade on the north and south sides, the underground parking lot, the man-made lake, and the green space, with a total land area of 118,900 square meters, and a total construction area of about 165,000 square meters, of which 105,000 square meters is for the main building and 60,000 square meters for the underground auxiliary facilities. The total investment is RMB 2.688 billion. The main building consists of an external enclosing steel shell and an internal 2,416-seat Opera House, a 2,017-seat Concert Hall, a 1,040-seat Drama Theater, a Public **** Hall and ancillary buildings. The external enclosing steel structure shell is semi-ellipsoidal, with a plan projection of 212.20 meters in the east-west direction, 143.64 meters in the north-south direction, a building height of 46.285 meters, and a foundation depth of -32.5 meters at the deepest part. The ellipsoidal roof is mainly made of titanium metal plate, and the central part is a gradual opening glass curtain wall. The ellipsoidal shell is surrounded by an artificial lake with a surface area of 35,500 square meters, and various passages and entrances are located under the water surface. The National Grand Theater is 46.68 meters high, slightly lower than the Great Hall of the People by 3.32 meters. However, its actual height is much higher than that of the Great Hall of the People because the height of the underground of the National Theater is as high as a 10-storey building, and 60% of its building is underground. Completed in 2008 Designed by PaulAndreuandADP.
The National Grand Theater was designed by French architect Paul Andreu under the auspices of BNP Paribas Airport. The roof of the National Theater building is semi-elliptical, covered by titanium with soft tones and luster, with two triangular-like glass curtain wall cutouts at the front and back, and the whole building floats on top of the man-made water, so that pedestrians need to enter the performance hall through an 80-meter-long underwater passage. The Grand Theater is innovative, avant-garde and uniquely conceived, combining tradition and modernity, romance and reality. This "theater in the city, theater in the city" is planned to appear as a "pearl in the lake" dedicated to the new century beyond imagination.
Overview
The main building of the National Grand Theater consists of an exterior envelope and an interior opera house, concert hall, theater, and public **** hall, as well as ancillary rooms. On the ground floor are located three buildings: the Opera House, the Concert Hall and the Theater, which are separated from each other by a roadway and connected to each other by a suspended walkway, as if the ground floor building on the water surface were a giant shell that covers, shelters, surrounds and illuminates all the halls and passages. The reflections of the buildings in the water form the exterior of the Grand Theater.
The external envelope is a steel shell, semi-ellipsoidal, with an east-west long axis of 212.20 meters, a north-south short axis of 143.64 meters, a total building height of 46.285 meters, and an underground depth of -32.50 meters. The ellipsoidal roof is mainly made of titanium metal plates, and the center is a gradual-opening glass curtain wall. The main building is surrounded by an artificial lake, which is surrounded by a cultural and leisure square composed of a large green area. The artificial lake covers an area of 35,500 square meters, the water depth of the artificial lake is 40 centimeters, the whole pool is divided into 22 compartments, the compartmentalized design is not only convenient for maintenance, but also able to save water, and is also conducive to safety. Each compartment is relatively independent, but the appearance maintains the overall consistency. The southern entrance to the theater, together with the northern entrance "underwater corridor", extends to 6m below ground, and the audience enters the theater through the underwater gallery. The main entrance on the north side is an 80-meter-long underwater gallery, while the entrance on the south side and the other passages are also underwater. Visitors entering the theater will find a shallow surface of water above their heads. There is a ticket office at the entrance, and the underwater promenade is flanked by art displays, art stores and other services. The NCPA's north entrance is connected to the subway's Tiananmen West Station and has an underground parking lot with a capacity of 1,000 motor vehicles and 1,500 bicycles.
There are three theaters in the Grand Theater, with the Opera House in the center, the Concert Hall on the east side, and the Drama Theater on the west side, and the three theaters are both completely independent and can be connected to each other through the sky corridor. There is a large lounge on the roof platform of the Opera House, a library and audio-visual materials hall on the roof platform of the Concert Hall, and a press room on the roof platform of the Drama Theater. The internal Opera House mainly performs operas, ballets and dance dramas, with 2,416 seats; the Concert Hall mainly performs symphonies, folk music and concerts, with 2,017 seats; and the Drama Theater mainly performs dramas, Peking Opera, local operas, folk songs and dances, with 1,040 seats. Each theater is equipped with dressing room, conductor's rest room, piano practice room, actors' waiting area, dressing room, costume ironing room, props room, actors' lounge. Stage technical rooms are equipped with sound control room, lighting control room, dimmer equipment room, sound equipment room, camera room and so on.
The Grand Theater*** has five rehearsal halls located between the three theaters, which can be ****used or used separately. A large rehearsal hall is mainly used for synthesized rehearsals; two middle rehearsal halls one mainly for dance rehearsals, one for orchestra rehearsals; two small rehearsal halls are mainly used for divisional rehearsals. The Grand Theatre has a centralized audio-visual production center with a large recording studio, a simultaneous recording studio, as well as television broadcasting machine room and audio-visual post-production room. Theatre has a large set painting room, set set hanging and painting equipment, but also sets, props refurbishment room and set storage, as well as for the container transportation with the elevating platform 2.
Lighting
There are 506 "mushroom lights" installed on the shell structure of the National Grand Theater. Unlike other buildings on Chang'an Street that are brightly lit at night, the "mushroom lights" on the shell of the NCPA emit a little light, like the twinkling stars in the night sky. When night falls, the night sky, starlight, still water, ball screen, light bank, reflection, the National Grand Theater will present its unique and beautiful night scene.
Stage
The National Grand Theater consists of three major parts: the Opera House, the Concert Hall and the Drama Theater. When you enter the Opera House, the first thing that catches your eye is the huge stage. The stage consists of a main stage, two side stage and a backstage, each stage can be subdivided into six pieces, which can be lifted into a step-like, but also according to the needs of the repertoire of the height of the staggered, but also lifting and rotating into a sloping surface. Due to the limitations of the height of the dome, the stage and part of the auditorium are located underground. The top of the stage is also equipped with more than 60 booms and curtains to create different performance scenes. 60 curtains can be quickly switched in as little as 5 seconds, and the Opera House's auditorium can accommodate more than 2,400 people at the same time to watch the show.
Audience
Theater, and the audience's most intimate contact is the audience. According to reports, there will be air-conditioning delivery holes under each seat. When the audience is watching the show, they can't feel the airflow, but they can enjoy the comfort brought by the air conditioning. And under the air supply design regulates the air temperature within two meters above the ground height, compared with the traditional central air conditioning to regulate the temperature of the entire theater, not only greatly save energy, but also does not produce the kind of noise of the central air conditioning.
In addition, the seats are equipped with an anechoic device, even if the audience left the folding chair, it will not make a sound.
The best of the National Grand Theater
-World's largest dome
The National Grand Theater's entire shell steel structure weighs 6,475 tons, with an east-west axial span of 212.2 meters, which makes it the world's largest dome at present.
-Beijing's deepest building
The deepest point underground of the NCPA is -32.5 meters, which is equivalent to the depth of digging 10 floors into the ground, making it the deepest building in Beijing.
-Asia's Largest Pipe Organ
The pipe organ in the concert hall*** has 6,500 pipes of articulation, which is the largest pipe organ in Asia, costing 30 million yuan.
National Grand Theater Artistic Committee List
National Grand Theater Artistic Director List
Drama Director: Xu Xiaozhong; Dance Director: Zhao Ruhang; Music Director: Chen Zohuang;
Designer Profile
Paul Andreu, born in Gondéon, near the city of Bordeaux, France, in 1938. A graduate of the école Supérieure d'Ingénieurs (1961), the école des Ponts et Chaussées (1963) and the école des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1968), he designed the circular Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport terminal in 1967. Since then, as chief architect of the Aeroports de Paris company, he has designed international airports such as Nice, Jakarta, Cairo and Shanghai, and the basic concept of Kansai International Airport in Japan is also attributed to Andrew. He has been involved in many large-scale projects, such as the Grande Arche in the Défense area of Paris and the French terminal of the Anglo-French Cross-Sea Tunnel, etc. In 1999, the Aeroports de Paris company led by André, in collaboration with Tsinghua University, won the bidding for the National Theater of China in an international competition after several rounds of competition.
Controversy and criticism
The construction plan for the NCPA had been criticized by some academicians, architects and architects. There were concerns about the huge cost and the art form of the building's design. The giant shells covering the four theaters were unnecessary in terms of performance functions and led to great depletion; the large pools were also an uneconomical act.
The NCPA has been nicknamed "Eggshell" by Beijing residents. This program for the NCPA is arguably one of the most startling. The jury put forward three principles before the bidding process: it looks like a theater, it looks like a Chinese theater, it looks like a theater near Tiananmen Square, and it doesn't fit in any of those three areas. Moreover, the shape of its appearance and the nearby Forbidden City and the adjoining Great Hall of the People architectural style 'incongruity' is also the focus of debate, criticism, and is considered to give up the "traditional" and take "modern "The dispute. In addition, Beijing sand and dust, large arc building and difficult to clean.
The National Grand Theater total investment of 2.68838 billion yuan, the Grand Theater project within the three major theaters have been determined to be 5,473 seats, the average cost of each seat nearly 500,000 yuan. With an average cost of 250,000 per Hope Primary School (with reference to Zhejiang standards), the total investment of the National Grand Theater can build 5473 x 2 = 10496 Hope Primary Schools. Some experts calculate statistics based on experience, the National Grand Theater after the completion of the operating costs and maintenance fees are extremely alarming, only the monthly electricity costs will require 4 million yuan, can build 16 hope elementary school.
Since its founding in 1989, the China Youth Development Foundation has received more than 2.2 billion yuan in donations from home and abroad over the past 15 years, subsidizing more than 2.5 million impoverished students to go to school, and assisting in the construction of 9,508 hope elementary school. Of every 100 rural elementary school, 2 are Hope Primary Schools. (February 24, 2004 (CYCF Newsletter 2004, Issue 1)). Comparison shows that the investment in the construction of the National Grand Theater is more than the funds raised by Project Hope in 15 years. If this cost is invested in rural education, it can be equivalent to the achievements of "Project Hope" for 15 years.