Architect of performing arts centre in Shenzhen, China, Rocco Yim of Hong Kong, on the thinking behind its monumental design
- A dramatic bayside building conceived by Rocco Design Architects Associates puts the city in southern China on the map for opera, ballet and stage performances
- Its fluid, curvaceous design gives it the dramatic presence it needs ‘to project from afar its monumentality’, explains Rocco Yim
Steps descend from an arc of palm trees into Qianhai Bay in Shenzhen’s Baoan district, but visitors stopping there to take a selfie or group shot may well turn their cameras away from the water.
That would give their photo a backdrop that frames a new landmark, the southern Chinese city’s Baoan Performing Arts Centre, designed by award-winning Hong Kong-based Rocco Design Architects Associates.
Its wide, gently curving, semi-transparent screen is sheltered by a roof 50 metres (164 feet) high extending to a skybridge-connected tower that tilts, as if leaning into a breeze. Behind this frontage is a 28,000 square metre building whose facilities include a 1,500-seat, world-class auditorium for opera, ballet and other stage performances.
Rocco Yim Sen-kee, who founded Rocco Design Architects Associates in 1979, says of the building’s massive and dramatic presence that it “needs to project from afar a monumentality befitting its [cultural] status”.
