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The opera house we didn't build
Oslo gets it right in waterfront remake
Sep. 16, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME
OSLO—Here in faraway Norway is the opera house Toronto should have built.
Unlike the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, a generic box that looks no farther than its own black-brick walls, this one is all about national ambition, civic pride, city renewal and commitment to culture.
Designed by Snohetta Architects, it is meant to be a landmark in every sense of the word. Located on the old Oslo docks, it was also designed to kick-start waterfront revitalization. Sound familiar? It should. Indeed, the similarities between Oslo and Toronto are startling, but not the response.
Where Toronto opted to build an opera house that serves its purpose and nothing beyond, Norwegians understood that such a project must address more than the narrow spectrum of opera lovers. Oslo is also in the process of burying its elevated waterfront highway and its railway tracks. The objective is to reintegrate the old harbourlands back into the city, and transform it into a mixed-use neighbourhood where people live and work.
What better way to launch the regeneration than by building an opera house? The first step, undertaken by the national government, no less, was to organize an international design competition, something not seen in Canada since the days of Pierre Trudeau.
The winner, Snohetta, is the rising Oslo firm that beat out 250 submissions, some from the most eminent names in architecture. Construction began last year and will finish in 2007.
"The opera house is regarded as a symbol of the central government's commitment to redeveloping the Oslo waterfront," says Snohetta founding partner Craig Dykers. "The government wanted to take care of the big picture first to send a signal that it's safe to invest here."
Imagine if Toronto had done the same, if we had thrown the design open to the architects of the world, then given them a major site on the edge of Lake Ontario. Such an approach would have made the opera house an international event from the start and given the waterfront an enormous boost.
When the models and drawings went on display in Oslo, more than 10,000 people showed up to see them.
Until recently, the Oslo site was polluted, rundown and generally avoided. Cut off from the city by the busiest highway in Norway, it was a post-industrial wasteland, much like Toronto's waterfront.
"When I was a child this was a shipyard," says Snohetta senior architect Tarald Lundevall. "It's on the east side of Oslo; people have always preferred to live on the west side. But in 10 years, we'll have a completely different situation."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`When it's done ... (it) will be a landscape as much as a building.'
Craig Dykers, Snohetta founding partner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though far from complete, urban transformation has started. Tunnels are being bored and buildings constructed; Oslo is clearly a work in progress.
It helps, of course, that Norway is awash in North Sea oil money, but then, in the tar sands Canada does have the second-largest oil reserves in the world. Outside of Alberta, however, you'd never know it, and even there, the same old mistakes are being made. The Norwegians have decided to spend the money rebuilding their infrastructure, physical and cultural. That means opera houses as well as burying highways.
The new Oslo facility, which will be home to the Norwegian national ballet company as well as the opera, will cost $500 million (U.S.). It will also change the city and how it's perceived locally and internationally. It is an extraordinary structure that serves the specific needs of connecting the site to the larger community while dealing with the psychological demands of a city that wants to redefine itself. Indeed, it functions as both an object building as well as part of the landscape. This aspect can be seen most obviously in the roof, a remarkable feature that slopes up from Oslo Fjord to the top of the house, and which will be entirely accessible. That means visitors will be able to wander up seven or eight storeys to enjoy the view, sunbathe or skateboard.
"The reality is that most people don't go to the opera," says Dykers. "But the city wants an opera house that's a symbol, so it's important to make it open and public. The lobby will also be open all day."
This space, clad on three sides with glass, rises from the centre of the site, a transparent multi-storey pavilion around which the marble-clad roof stretches. It's hard to tell where the building ends and the landscape begins, but that blurring of distinctions is exactly what Dykers intends.
Indeed, his opera house marks a new approach to monumental urban architecture, one in which there's no difference between structure and setting. The building takes on an almost geological quality, as if it's part of the topography. In fact, those who look carefully may notice that the slope of the roof picks up and continues the slope of a large hill, Ekeberg, just southeast of Oslo. It is a subtle touch, but one that emphasizes the feeling the opera house is at one with its context.
Inside, the hall is a traditional horseshoe configuration with 1,380 seats. It will be finished in wood. A small 400-seat black-box theatre sits to one side of the main venue. The location of the proscenium in the big stage (actually six stages) marks the dividing line between land and water; this is, after all, a structure that straddles the two.
"We took a direct approach to linking the building to the water," notes Dykers, who first came to international prominence for designing the Alexandria Library in Cairo, and more recently for the 9/11 memorial/museum at Ground Zero. "The back of the house faces east to the former industrial area. The front faces west to the city. When it's done, there will be a series of parks around the opera house. It will be a landscape as much as a building, so people are welcome to enter it."
In addition to the public, the opera house will have to accommodate 600 staff; for them there are five rehearsal halls, offices, workshops, a cafeteria and, best of all, a secret courtyard for their use only.
With the exception of Sverre Fehn, Pritzker Prize winner and the grand old man of Norwegian architecture, we don't hear much about design in Norway. That will soon change; the advent of Snohetta and the Oslo opera house will attract global attention to that firm, city and country.
Would that the same could be said of the Four Seasons.
The opera house we didn't build
Oslo gets it right in waterfront remake
Sep. 16, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME
OSLO—Here in faraway Norway is the opera house Toronto should have built.
Unlike the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, a generic box that looks no farther than its own black-brick walls, this one is all about national ambition, civic pride, city renewal and commitment to culture.
Designed by Snohetta Architects, it is meant to be a landmark in every sense of the word. Located on the old Oslo docks, it was also designed to kick-start waterfront revitalization. Sound familiar? It should. Indeed, the similarities between Oslo and Toronto are startling, but not the response.
Where Toronto opted to build an opera house that serves its purpose and nothing beyond, Norwegians understood that such a project must address more than the narrow spectrum of opera lovers. Oslo is also in the process of burying its elevated waterfront highway and its railway tracks. The objective is to reintegrate the old harbourlands back into the city, and transform it into a mixed-use neighbourhood where people live and work.
What better way to launch the regeneration than by building an opera house? The first step, undertaken by the national government, no less, was to organize an international design competition, something not seen in Canada since the days of Pierre Trudeau.
The winner, Snohetta, is the rising Oslo firm that beat out 250 submissions, some from the most eminent names in architecture. Construction began last year and will finish in 2007.
"The opera house is regarded as a symbol of the central government's commitment to redeveloping the Oslo waterfront," says Snohetta founding partner Craig Dykers. "The government wanted to take care of the big picture first to send a signal that it's safe to invest here."
Imagine if Toronto had done the same, if we had thrown the design open to the architects of the world, then given them a major site on the edge of Lake Ontario. Such an approach would have made the opera house an international event from the start and given the waterfront an enormous boost.
When the models and drawings went on display in Oslo, more than 10,000 people showed up to see them.
Until recently, the Oslo site was polluted, rundown and generally avoided. Cut off from the city by the busiest highway in Norway, it was a post-industrial wasteland, much like Toronto's waterfront.
"When I was a child this was a shipyard," says Snohetta senior architect Tarald Lundevall. "It's on the east side of Oslo; people have always preferred to live on the west side. But in 10 years, we'll have a completely different situation."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`When it's done ... (it) will be a landscape as much as a building.'
Craig Dykers, Snohetta founding partner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though far from complete, urban transformation has started. Tunnels are being bored and buildings constructed; Oslo is clearly a work in progress.
It helps, of course, that Norway is awash in North Sea oil money, but then, in the tar sands Canada does have the second-largest oil reserves in the world. Outside of Alberta, however, you'd never know it, and even there, the same old mistakes are being made. The Norwegians have decided to spend the money rebuilding their infrastructure, physical and cultural. That means opera houses as well as burying highways.
The new Oslo facility, which will be home to the Norwegian national ballet company as well as the opera, will cost $500 million (U.S.). It will also change the city and how it's perceived locally and internationally. It is an extraordinary structure that serves the specific needs of connecting the site to the larger community while dealing with the psychological demands of a city that wants to redefine itself. Indeed, it functions as both an object building as well as part of the landscape. This aspect can be seen most obviously in the roof, a remarkable feature that slopes up from Oslo Fjord to the top of the house, and which will be entirely accessible. That means visitors will be able to wander up seven or eight storeys to enjoy the view, sunbathe or skateboard.
"The reality is that most people don't go to the opera," says Dykers. "But the city wants an opera house that's a symbol, so it's important to make it open and public. The lobby will also be open all day."
This space, clad on three sides with glass, rises from the centre of the site, a transparent multi-storey pavilion around which the marble-clad roof stretches. It's hard to tell where the building ends and the landscape begins, but that blurring of distinctions is exactly what Dykers intends.
Indeed, his opera house marks a new approach to monumental urban architecture, one in which there's no difference between structure and setting. The building takes on an almost geological quality, as if it's part of the topography. In fact, those who look carefully may notice that the slope of the roof picks up and continues the slope of a large hill, Ekeberg, just southeast of Oslo. It is a subtle touch, but one that emphasizes the feeling the opera house is at one with its context.
Inside, the hall is a traditional horseshoe configuration with 1,380 seats. It will be finished in wood. A small 400-seat black-box theatre sits to one side of the main venue. The location of the proscenium in the big stage (actually six stages) marks the dividing line between land and water; this is, after all, a structure that straddles the two.
"We took a direct approach to linking the building to the water," notes Dykers, who first came to international prominence for designing the Alexandria Library in Cairo, and more recently for the 9/11 memorial/museum at Ground Zero. "The back of the house faces east to the former industrial area. The front faces west to the city. When it's done, there will be a series of parks around the opera house. It will be a landscape as much as a building, so people are welcome to enter it."
In addition to the public, the opera house will have to accommodate 600 staff; for them there are five rehearsal halls, offices, workshops, a cafeteria and, best of all, a secret courtyard for their use only.
With the exception of Sverre Fehn, Pritzker Prize winner and the grand old man of Norwegian architecture, we don't hear much about design in Norway. That will soon change; the advent of Snohetta and the Oslo opera house will attract global attention to that firm, city and country.
Would that the same could be said of the Four Seasons.
