Busan Opera House Proposal by PRAUD

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Boston-based firm PRAUD has shared with us their entry to the Busan Opera House competition. The international ideas competition invited visions for a massive cultural center, comprising a 2,000-seat opera house and a 1,300-seat multi-purpose theater, that acts as a landmark building for this booming South Korean city and puts Busan on the map of international tourism.

PRAUD's entry didn't make one of the first prizes, but we're happy to share this fascinating concept anyway. The design team included Dongwoo Yim, Rafael Luna, and Stacy Choi.

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Competition entry for the new Busan Opera House by PRAUD (Image: PRAUD)Project Description from the Architects:

The concept starts from how multiple performance facilities can share common program. One way is to share public space such as foyers and the other is to share theatre function itself. We found out an interesting potential of theatre that when one performance facility share its theatre function with other facilities, various types of performance stages could be created by transformation of stage and chamber facilities. Unlike having a fixed performance stage and sharing common public space, it is a way of providing a variety of experience to the audience as well as using the opera house more efficient way.

To achieve this goal, we developed a transformable “cylinder” not only for stage/chamber function but also for structural stability. Multiple disks in the “cylinder” can move vertically depends on type and size of performance you need and numbers of performances at the same time. This vertical movement also creates void that provides visual connection between floors/masses so that a performance can be shown to audience in various ways. Also these disks can rotate so that performance can happen in multiple directions as well.