Vista notturna di Guangzhou Opera House progettata da Iraqi-British architetto Zaha Hadid nella città di Guangzhou, Cina del sud della provincia di Guangdong, 20 Februar
Night view of the Guangzhou Opera House designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid in Guangzhou city, south China's Guangdong province, 20 February 2016. Opera houses have long been a symbol of a city's culture, and today a Zaha Hadid opera house is the cultural symbol of choice for a new world city. Dubai had to cancel theirs in the financial crisis; Abu Dhabi are still building theirs; but Guangzhou have completed theirs, to justifed critical acclaim. The Guangzhou Opera House is the third largest theater in China, for what is, by some measures at least, China's third largest city. While there is some commonality to the fluid, amorphous forms of Hadid's opera house designs, the Guanzhou opera house stands out as the least organic. The building sits in the urban center of Guangzhou close to the Pearl River, and Hadid's metaphor for the building is a pair of water-smoothed pebbles in the flow of the river.
