Public Choice Award
Shortlisted Project:
Wexford Opera House
Project: Wexford Opera House
Architect: OPW & Keith Williams Architects
In architectural terms, the new opera house may be seen as a series of formal set-pieces centred around the main auditorium, fly-tower and the smaller second theatre forming a nucleus at the heart of the organisation. The nucleus was then enveloped by an architectural collar containing the supporting spaces which locks it into the irregular edges of the backland plots of urban block in which it is situated.
The O’Reilly Theatre, (the main auditorium), has been inspired both by the form of a cello and the curves of a traditional horseshoe-form operatic space. Its surfaces are lined in black American walnut whilst the seating has been finished in pale purple leather giving the room a rich sense of material quality. The curvaceous qualities of the room and its balconies, and its unbroken timber materiality are intended to be analogous to a stringed instrument, perhaps the cello. The technical elements of the theatre such as the lighting bridges are floated free and set against the timber lined ceiling, comparable aesthetically to the cello’s technical elements, its finger board, bridge and strings. The walnut covering every surface imbues the room with a sense of consistency and rigour, resulting in a space of great visual weight.
