It's a big week for the city of Wuhan. Tomorrow sees the capital of Hubei province inaugurate two of the most spectacular entertainment venues ever built: the Wanda Movie Park - the world's first entirely indoor theme park - and the Han Show Theatre, featuring a permanent show by artistic director Franco Dragone, of Cirque du Soleil fame.
The first of five major entertainment venues being developed for the city by the Dalian Wanda Group, the buildings are also the anchoring projects of a new 2km canal-side cultural district that includes homes, offices, shops, bars and restaurants.
Both were designed by London-based entertainment architects Stufish, the practice behind some of the most complex, startling and seminal rock shows of all time (The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, U2, Madonna, Lady Gaga), and masterminds of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Stufish's first built projects in China, and first permanent structures in the world, they are bombastic yet sophisticated and theatrical, and hi-tech.
Coming 18 months after the death of the studio's influential and charismatic founder, Mark Fisher, they represent a particularly poignant milestone. "Mark would be amazed and proud to have achieved this," says Cristina Garcia, his widow and a principal at global architecture firm KPF in London.
The most exhilarating features of both projects have made it from the earliest concept stages through to the final design. The Han Show Theatre still has the lantern-like form, colour and appearance of early discussions (the vertical columns on the building's ground-floor podium level symbolise the lantern's tassels), as well as its facade of 18,000 red aluminium LED discs based on the ancient and symbolic jade "bi" discs (used in burial rituals) of the third century Han dynasty.
Inside, a white-and-gold atrium "gives you this sense that light is pouring out of the bottom of the lantern and everything inside is glowing", says project architect Jenny Melville, and the atrium's glass ceiling enables visitors to see the intricate external cable net structure above holding the discs in place.