After a decade in the making, the curtain is set to rise at Shanghai Grand Opera House

The curtains at the Shanghai Grand Opera House will finally rise on 17 October. A decade in the making, the new world-class cultural destination in the Chinese metropolis will kick things off with a packed season featuring 82 performances across 47 productions. 

Designed by Oslo-founded architecture practice Snøhetta in close collaboration with the East China Architectural Design and Research Institute, the sprawling 146,786 sq m complex will be more than a performing-arts venue. The team has imagined it as an all-day public space that offers unbeatable views of the city and Huangpu river. “We’ve always believed that buildings should be bigger than themselves,” says Richard Wood, Snøhetta’s managing director for Asia. “The Shanghai Grand Opera House is almost like a civic square – one that we hope will be owned and loved by the people.”

The centrepiece is a helical roof that echoes the form of a bamboo fan. Inspired by its unfolding movement, the roof expands in one continuous gesture down a radiating staircase, eventually leading into an underground metro station. “The roof not only links the performance hall to the exterior but also connects the ground to the sky and the building to the park and water,” says Snøhetta’s studio director for China, Cheng Gong.

Contrasting the simplicity of the sweeping roof is a stack of sculptural red volumes at the entrance, alluding to the drama that will ensue on stage. Besides three state-of-the-art performance halls of varying sizes, Snøhetta has made room for a full production facility. “At other theatres, production is done off-site but here everything – from the set design to the costumes and props – can be produced in the same building in one seamless flow,” says Gong. 

While back-of-house spaces are traditionally sealed off from the public, Snøhetta has intentionally uncovered parts of the production facility to the street, giving passers-by a glimpse of how the show comes together. “There’s been a global shift in cultural architecture where buildings [have opened up] to the people, and we like to think that we have played an active role in shaping that,” says Wood. “There’s a generosity in how we’ve designed the Shanghai Grand Opera House.” As construction enters its final phase, Wood is keen to see if Snøhetta’s vision will take shape as planned. “When I meet a married couple in 10 years’ time and they tell me that they met on the upper roof, that would be the highest success,” he says.

Three more up-coming cultural openings in Asia

Decentral, Bangkok
April 2027

Established by Thai real-estate conglomerate Central Group, Decentral Bangkok is a forthcoming non-profit art centre situated across a former denim factory, an office building and a traditional Thai-style house in the buzzing Watthana district. Taking an adaptive-reuse approach, Hong Kong-based practice Beau Architects has conceived a tropical garden to connect the spaces into one creative compound complete with shops and a café. Decorating the walls will be commissioned works by Thai contemporary artists. Decentral’s second outpost in Chiang Mai is also in the works. 

Róng Museum of Art, Shenzhen
June 2027

Shenzhen, known as China’s Silicon Valley, is making serious moves on the culture front. Following closely behind the Zaha Hadid Architects-designed Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum is the Róng Museum of Art, a private institution funded by Tencent co-founder, Pony Ma. No expense has been spared: the sprawling 4,500 sq m building is designed by acclaimed architecture firm Büro Ole Scheeren while the museum’s founding director Pi Li, previously the head of art at Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun Contemporary, is assembling a blockbuster opening exhibition focused on the visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Róng Museum of Art is part of an ambitious mixed-use property development, Houhai Hybrid Campus, which includes Upper House’s new Shenzhen outpost. 

Kontempo Center for Contemporary Art, Manila 
No date set yet

The Ayala Foundation, the non-profit arm of Filipino conglomerate Ayala Corporation, is behind one of the Philippines’ highly anticipated cultural projects: Kontempo Center for Contemporary Art. LA-based Thai architect Kulapat Yantrasast – known for designing Dib Bangkok – has hatched a building within the 2.5-hectare site that blurs the boundaries between inside and out, while Reuben Keehan, Queensland Art Gallery’s former curator of contemporary Asian art, has taken on the role of artistic director. Instead of building a large permanent collection, the museum will reportedly focus on “exhibitions, commissions, research and public programming”.