Concert Halls • Theaters • Opera Houses • Convention Centers • Cinemas • Arenas Auditoria

Concert Halls • Theaters • Opera Houses • Convention Centers • Cinemas • Arenas 21 Annual 2015 Inside: Culture injection: Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts Greek revival: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center Arts funding: The quest for alternative financing models Las Vegas Arena: Sin City’s next entertainment mecca Published by

UKIP Media & Events Ltd Baku masterpiece Heydar Aliyev Center: Zaha Hadid’s most radical creation yet STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION CULTURAL CENTER BY BRIAN LIBBY Athens rebirth

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The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center is set to revitalize an economically beleaguered Greece with a landmark cultural attraction and innovative public spaces

n recent years, Greece has been more Long time coming battered by recession than any other The project had a long gestation, dating back country in Europe. Now, as this proud to the foundation’s original 1998 commitment and culturally rich Mediterranean to support construction of a new National nation begins to recover and rebuild, Library. During that time, national and world Ione of its most important philanthropic economies have boomed, busted and boomed organizations is at work building a symbol of again. “The foundation put a lot of thought the new, resilient, ambitious Greece. The Stavros and time into doing it right, in terms of many Niarchos Foundation, founded in 1996 from studies,” Andriopoulou says. “We had to look the pockets of the shipbuilding magnate whose at the business as well as the technical side.” name it bears, has partnered with the national The Greek National Opera only needed the government to create a new combined home larger auditorium, but including the additional for the Greek National Opera and the National smaller theater “allows the facility to bring lots Library of Greece. of different groups here to experiment and to Situated in the waterside Athens suburb attract people of all ages”, she adds. “If we didn’t of Kallithea, the €566m (US$734m) Stavros have this second space, that wouldn’t be so easy.” Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), Openness and accessibility were major scheduled for completion in 2016, will in factors in the design, which seeks to break down addition to the library include two auditoria barriers between the performance halls and the – one with 1,400 seats for operas and ballets, outdoor spaces. In addition to the park atop the and the other with 450 seats that is dedicated building, there is the Agora, a multistory, glass- to experimental performances. The National faced public plaza resembling a kind of cliff or Library will enjoy not only hundreds of crease in the hill that serves as the entrance to thousands of square feet of book storage and the library and the two performing arts venues. research space, but also a striking glass cube- The venue will also feature numerous outdoor shaped reading room atop the facility that will performances as well as video simulcasts of afford views of Faliro Bay and the Mediterranean shows happening inside the building. This Sea. The project also uses its sloping roof as has been a trend in recent performing arts a public park. “That’s something that is quite auditorium design, particularly since the Frank innovative, to have two national organizations Gehry-designed New World Center in Miami co-located,” says Elly Andriopoulou, the Beach, Florida, was completed in 2011. SNFCC’s COO. “If you add the park element, “That sort of connectedness was definitely we consider it quite powerful.” in our minds as we were working on this,”

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The numbers says Benton Delinger, a principal with Theater a racetrack and was later used as a parking lot for Projects Consultants, a collaborator in the opera the 2004 Olympic Games, had long lost its view €566m (US$734m): Cost house’s design and configuration. “Symphonies of the water to surrounding development. That of design and construction are asking how we can connect to audiences is why the NSFCC’s designer, Pritzker Prize- 4: Number of years it will further afield. And for this client, education was winning Italian architect Renzo Piano, proposed take to construct SNFCC important. Part of the importance of this project creating an artificial hill on the site, burying the 2 2,200,000ft : Size of SNFCC was using technology to reach out to Greeks building program, except for the glass-cubed 1,400: Number of seats to show them that they have this important reading room, underground. This would create in the main auditorium connection within their community.” a hillside view of the water and provide room for 85%: Percentage of SNFCC For the SNFCC, openness becomes not just a an 180,000ft2 landscaped public green space on site covered by parkland way to attract new audiences but to symbolically top, leading up to the reading room. 15%: Percentage of SNFCC express inclusion. “It’s trying to show people that “The first time we met Renzo Piano he site covered by the new this is a place for everybody, for all the citizens,” said, ‘Why don’t we make a hill?’ In this hill we National Library and says Ioannis Trohopoulos, managing director of contain everything,” explains architect Giorgio National Opera buildings the SNFCC. “Normally, only a small percentage Bianchi, who oversaw the project for the Renzo 328 x 328ft: Size of the of the people use these kinds of education and Piano Building Workshop. “From that point, photovoltaic solar energy cultural institutions. The foundation believes all he got the idea of having this movement of the canopy that will provide Greeks need a better quality of life in terms of earth, which shifted gradually over 40m [130ft]. power to the SNCC access to the arts, culture and education.” When you are at this height you no longer have 2,000,000: The total number the street and the city. You have the island, of books that will be stored Room with a view the sea, and if you turn around you have the in the new National Library The Greek word ‘kallithea’ translates as ‘nice Acropolis and the city of Athens. Everything of Greece view’, but the 103,000-acre site, which once held becomes a public space. It is a movement of the

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“Normally, only a small percentage of the people use these kinds of education and cultural institutions. The foundation believes all Greeks need a better quality of life in terms of access to the arts, culture and education” Ioannis Trohopoulos, managing director, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center .

ANCIENT INSPIRATION The SNFCC design team looked not only to European opera house traditions for inspiration, but also to ancient Greek theater. In particular, the team traveled to the Sanctuary of Asklepeios at Epidaurus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Argolis region, which dates to the 4th century BC and is still in use today. Renowned for its acoustics, the theater makes it possible for unamplified audio to be heard by all 15,000 spectators. “We conducted measurements and it was clear that there is some shaping and forming of ground, the soil, the earth, that generates a big the stonework and seats that contributes to the theater’s acoustic park. And then when you walk along the canal properties,” says Arup’s Raj Patel. “There’s a particular curvature to the you find this huge glass façade, which is the way backs of the seats that allows sound reflections to travel along the lengths the building reveals itself outside.” of the curve.” This goes against more recent design principles, as Patel explains. Sun worshippers “Buildings that did it often ended up being unsuccessful because of The NSFCC seeks to be a model of sustainable echoes. It was a misunderstanding of the geometry of the curvature and design, earning a top-level platinum rating from how to use it. However, we decided to reuse some of the curvature and the US Green Building Council’s LEED system natural acoustic enhancements of these Greek rooms and put them to thanks in part to a massive array of photovoltaic work in this building.” solar panels on the reading room’s roof that will supply all the venue’s electricity. “Since the Opera’s existing home, in a former movie theater. Above: As visitors approach beginning, we said we were in the country of the “We knew we needed to do something bigger to the SNFCC site from the north, sun and of the wind. So, these elements should suit modern operas,” says Delinger. “The thing the urban landscape gives way to tree-lined side streets be used to generate energy for the building,” that’s distinctive about the room, and which where patrons can rest in explains Bianchi. “Nothing is wasted in this Renzo brought to it, is a strong sense of the meditative seating areas or building.” While the solar panels provide power, operatic. There is a very strong design quality explore a circular labyrinth building into a hillside helps with insulation. in terms of strength and the grandeur of the Rainwater is also collected for irrigation and proscenium that I like very much. The whole Opposite: The site’s visual many spaces make use of natural ventilation. place is very grand in a modern way.” and physical connection with water will continue in the park The NSFCC’s larger opera house, which has Bianchi follows this up: “When you think with a canal running along a a traditional curving horseshoe shape with three about a theater or opera house, at least in Europe, north–south, main pedestrian balconies, is much larger than the Greek National you imagine La Scala and the Paris opera, where axis, dubbed the Esplanade

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The 1,400-seat opera house will play host to technically demanding international multimedia art productions, and a bevy of solo vocalists you have all this decoration, warm colors, velvet, LIGHT Although books and other printed text are plaster... But Renzo is more modernist than ADVANTAGE increasingly becoming digitized, the design traditionalist, viewing the past through a prism The SNFCC is using sought to celebrate cultural history in the tactile of contemporary architectural language.” LED technology to nature of bound volumes. The library reading create more focused, room, sitting on the hill with its auditoria Style council precise lighting and book stacks below, becomes the project’s In order to determine the best possible acoustics, while expanding the signature form, and a counterpoint to the both the architects and acousticians sought a use of colored light Acropolis across Athens on another perch-like balance between northern and southern in opera. hillside spot. “When you are on top of the hill, “Light is key to European styles as well as traditional and you turn around and see the Aegean Sea. You see creating connections modern influences. “There’s a big difference between performers all the most important monuments of one of the between an old Italian opera house like La Scala and audience,” says oldest cities in the world,” Bianchi adds. “When and a new building like Oslo’s opera house,” says Brian Stacy, lighting you are up there you really are in another world. Raj Patel, a principal with Arup, the project’s leader of the You are in a dimension that didn’t exist before. acoustical consultant. “La Scala has lower Americas region at With all of this around you – the city, the sea, the reverberation and higher clarity. Northern Arup, which island – it is quite magical.” European opera houses favor high reverberance, provided lighting With its large, multivenue scale and its arrival a more choral reverberance for the voice tones. consultation in in tumultuous economic times, the SNFCC has We had to ask ourselves, ‘Should we be designing addition to acoustics. an opportunity not only to transform the arts a rich lyrical Mediterranean auditorium or “There’s a level of in Athens, but perhaps even to uplift the nation. precision with LED something more akin to the northern tradition?’” “There is also a lot of expectation from the that we necessarily Ultimately, Patel says, the design favors a balance don’t get with public,” says Trohopoulos. “A lot of people believe of both. tungsten or halogen that this project will be a very important positive For the National Library, “The first thing we approaches. We have sign. It gives the possibility for progress, for hope. said was that we should have something very walls that curve and We shouldn’t underestimate the problems Greece open so that from outside you can understand it panels that undulate. faces, but these cultural centers can be a success is a library,” Bianchi explains. We couldn’t get the story. And in that way, it’s a positive.” n “It was clear that we wanted the books to be curving response we visible. That’s why we have this gigantic structure need with a standard Author inside that is wrapped with books. From the four-foot light in Brian Libby is a Portland, Oregon-based some locations. LED outside you understand you are going into this freelance journalist who specializes in the gives that flexibility.” world of culture and memory.” arts and architecture

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