Rocco Design Architects Associates’s (RDA) Performing Arts Centre, flagship of the Bao’an Cultural Complex, opened on 17 September 2021 in Shenzhen, China. Overlooking Qianhai Bay and the South China Sea, the building anchors the southern end of the cultural complex. It houses Shenzhen’s first performance hall to be scaled and equipped for international operas, as well as a 600-seat venue and rehearsal facilities. The 28,000-square-metre building will host opera, dance, symphonies, and dramatic performances.

The design takes inspiration from the long and narrow waterfront site. The base of the building is a low-slung, wave-like volume that carries a sense of rhythm and movement along the campus’s axis. A delicately perforated facade hearkens back to ancient Chinese craft like wood and ivory carving and produces dramatic visual effects recalling light shimmering on the bay.

The scrim-like envelope modulates transparency according to the spaces it encloses, creating openings at the public lobbies and gathering areas and becoming more opaque at the theatres and rehearsal spaces. While formally and technically innovative, the facade concept is rooted in traditional Chinese building screens and shadow walls.