HANGZHOU YUHANG OPERA
Ensuring flexibility in an auditorium
can make achieving the right acoustics a
more challenging task. For conferences, the
government wanted a layout where most people
were on the main floor. “They had less interest in
balconies,” says Godefroy. “That’s quite different
to what we would normally do for an opera and
concert hall. We’d want to create an intimate
atmosphere and bring people closer to the stage.
But this wish to use the space as a conference
facility meant the volume had to be a bit more
elongated and less tall.”
Yet when the building opened in May 2019
with a performance by the Czech National
Philharmonic Orchestra, Godefroy was
impressed with the sound. “When you try to
make a hall that can host conferences, operas,
philharmonic orchestras and amplified music,
you might have to sacrifice here and there a little
bit,” he says. “But we reached a good solution;
it has a very wide spectrum acoustically.”
The auditorium’s walls are clad in bamboo, but
embedded with absorbent material. The facility
is also equipped with curtains that can be
dragged down to create more sound absorption.
Indoor-outdoor
The venue’s smaller black box theatre is even
more flexible than the main auditorium. One
wall is movable and can disappear into the rest
STAGE TECHNOLOGY
The main auditorium stage
and its technology had to be
set up to be highly adaptable
to changing requirements.
“The technical equipment
must be able to accommodate
a stage set and not the other
way around, as was usually
the case for stage sets and
production standards in the
past,” explains Horst Kunkel
of Kunkel Consulting, the
project’s theatre and stage
consultant. “The stage is
also designed for very short
assembly and disassembly
periods, which in the end
dramatically reduce the time
needed for scenic changes.”
This comes in part through
the centralisation of operating
and control elements for both
the over-stage and the understage
machinery.
The stage machinery system
was designed to be energysaving
and cost-effective.
“Only state-of-the-art
equipment – such as motors
and reducers, as well as the
components of the control
system – were allowed, to
ensure that the efficiency will
meet today’s standards and
energy consumption will be
low,” says Kunkel.
AUDITORIA 2020 VOLUME ONE 31