The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority has selected UNStudio, in collaboration with AD+RG, to design its fifth major arts venue, the Lyric Theatre, which will sit alongside Herzog & de Meuron's planned M+ arts venue at the Western end of the Cultural District. The 1,200-seat theatre will be Hong Kong's first world class dance performance venue for ballet, contemporary and Chinese dance. It will also temporarily serve as a venue for drama, opera and musical performances during the construction of the other venues in West Kowloon Cultural District.
Read on after the break for more on the West Kowloon Cultural District and UNStudio's appointment.
The Lyric Theatre follows the Xiqu Center, the Arts Pavilion, and the M+ Museum for Visual Culture among the plans hatched by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, who say that with this addition "a complete vision of the entire headland area of the WKCD has emerged."
With this new "complete vision" of the waterfront area in West Kowloon, the Authority has now completed its controversial move to abandon the masterplans submitted in a competition it ran in 2011 (pictured above). Foster + Partners, the winning designers in that competition, declined to submit designs for any of the new cultural buildings after their plans were dropped last year.
The designs by UNStudio and AD+RG are expected to be revealed this autumn, with a predicted completion date of 2019.
