The Bei­jing Opera House, the first of the Fan­tas­tic Four new “Grands Pro­jets” of the 21st Cen­tury China, com­pleted last Sep­tem­ber and open to the public last Decem­ber, is under a lot of controversy.

Dif­fer­ently than the other three projects (National Swim­ming Center, by PTW, Bird’s Nest, by H&M and CCTV Tower by OMA), the Opera was built at the south­west­ern area of the For­bid­den City, few steps to the west of the Tianan­men Square. The project by the airport-​design spe­cial­ist Paul Andreu is still the center of all atten­tions in Chi­nese news.

The feel­ings are ambigu­ous. In one hand, the proud gov­ern­ment opens the build­ing as a sign of great inter­est in cul­ture, right in the heart of the city. Crit­i­cism comes when a) spe­cial­ists believe that the project doesn’t seem to respond to the spirit of the Chi­nese archi­tec­ture and the his­tory of the city and b) people real­ize that the build­ing is too dis­tant and feel scared in front of the ago­ra­pho­bic water spaces around the tita­nium shell.

The cost of the opera, 336 mil­lion U.S. dol­lars, was also one of the main con­tro­ver­sies. How­ever, after the open­ing it seems that every­one involved in the Opera, from art direc­tor to musi­cians are happy with one of the best acoustics you could find in Asia.

The entrances for the con­certs cost between 3 and 200 euros. I can’t imag­ine how dif­fer­ent your posi­tion inside the the­atre can be to pay almost 100 times more than other people, but this is also the new China, where it’s all about status and to be in the right spot, even if per­haps only 10% of the audi­ence really under­stands what an opera pre­sen­ta­tion is.

The flow­ers are killing the atmos­phere, but they are almost inevitable in con­tem­po­rary China (did you see Rem’s shovel few posts ago?).

Per­son­ally I can’t under­stand the ceil­ing of this music per­for­mance hall. Using the roof for a bright relief behind the light­en­ing system seems quite ack­ward, giving a sense of unfin­ished that doesn’t match the rest of the inte­rior (over designed).

Where are the bag­gage claim counters?

While we have to wait very short time to see the other 3 shiny new stars of the boom­ing icons. CCTV towers are con­nected, the Swim­ming Center is cladded and the Bird’s Nest struc­ture is finished.

Mean­while, the eyes of China and the world are already put into the design of Shanghai’s 2010 Expo.

I only hope that shortly after the Olympic Games the energy will be focused into the hous­ing prob­lems of China. In the next 15 years, spe­cial­ists believe that China needs to build new hous­ing for 300 mil­lion immi­grants from the coun­try­side. T-H-A-T is scary.