Neues Opernhaus in Warschau / Koncepcja architektoniczna Teatru Polskiej Opery Królewskiej (PL)

Inspirations. The park is a vast green area, time to time interrupted by small garden architecture. The most important object, Palace on the Isle, used to be the mansion of the XVIII-century king Stanisław August Poniatowski. Apart from this, smaller pavilions can be found on this spacious area. Once they belonged to the king, nowadays they hold cultural functions and are mostly opened to the public. What is peculiar, is that all the architectural structures seems to be bright "cubes" immersed in a green sea of trees. They are human-scale pavilions, symmetrical, geometrical, shimmering on the dark background of nature. This image became an inspiration to design the new Royal Opera House that corresponds with the existing buildings scale and respectfully refers to the context.

The concept. A modern opera house, compared to the park buildings, is an object of large dimensions and specific proportions determined by functional and technological standards. In order to make it more suitable for the location and less invasive to the historical context, the proposal was to divide the big volume into three smaller cubes. This way the landscape character of the area is preserved and the plot seamlessly connects with the rest of the park. The composition of cubes includes also two existing historical building that stand in the closest neighbourhood - Hermitage and the former kitchen building. They are drawn into the composition and become an architectural link between history and modernity. The largest block, housing the opera hall, becomes the central element of the composition surrounded by smaller blocks with complementary functions.

Spatial solutions. All three buildings are located on the site in accordance with the most important compositional elements of the area. The entrance building is faced towards the street that the biggest amount of people will arrive from. The second object, intended for artists, is parallel to Piaseczyński Canal. It is slightly distant from the street, which ensure a bit of intimacy and peace. The third building, holding opera hall, is perpendicular to the axis of the Palace on the water, which was one of the competition demands. Dividing the building into three pieces preserved a view axis towards Ujazdowski Castle, which is now framed by new structures.

Function and “entrance sequence”. Three cubes are connected underground with the common base that holds functions like main foyer, stage facilities, changing rooms for artists and parking. Building division helps to create something that can be called “entrance sequence”. You can discover the building slowly, with every step immersing more and more into an artistic, musical atmosphere. The first building is a buffer between daily life and the approaching concert. It has an open plan and is exposed to the greenery and light. The visitors go downstairs, where they are a little bit more separated from the surrounding. Yet, big opening in the slab still keeps the relation with the park. Then they reach the opera hall, which is the heart of the project, a wooden cave hidden deep inside the building, where you can disconnect and just focus on a music.

Landscape in between. The story that the project tells is not only about buildings and its interiors, but also about the surrounding, which in this case has exceptional quality. The space between buildings is designed to be an equivalent part of the opera house. It adds the new quality to the project, as it can be used for some outdoor events or open-air concerts. When the opera house is not holding any event, the plot remains open to all strollers from the park, so it can be always full of life, prepared for different activities. The landscape between buildings is shaped by small hills. Some of them are holding building functions underneath, other are soil embankments that let to plant trees. Thanks to this, the space is even more playful and attracting. The biggest hill is facing the outdoor stage, therefore it can be used as a natural amphitheatre.

Façade. An opera is a combination of many arts - music, lyric, movement, stage design. In this case, also architecture. Therefore, the idea was to design architecture that is like a big-scale sculpture, which can enhance the experience of visitors. The lines of the buildings are clean and simple, standing out against the organic background of nature. Two elements were mainly used to shape the architecture - massive monolithic blocks made of coloured polished architectural concrete, and a delicate structure that is a contemporary interpretation of a colonnade with variable column spacing. These elements are used in different ways, depending on the functional needs of each pavilion, but they are always present, making the three blocks coherent in terms of architectural language.