Snøhetta revealed its design for Duett Düsseldorf, a new opera house set to become the German city’s new cultural destination. Stemming from the horizontal volume containing the new music venue are two sloping towers containing a hotel, restaurants, office spaces and residential units, creating a multi-layered development serving the arts and culture scene of Düsseldorf. Neighbouring the historic Hofgarten park and the Rhein river, the project’s ground-level blurs the boundaries between indoor and outdoor, with a glass façade revealing a cultural wood wall within the foyer, welcoming users to the opera house.
The new opera house replaces the existing cultural venue no longer meeting the space requirements of the program and brings a series of complementary functions to the development. The horizontal volume houses the opera program with its various amenities while also creating a dialogue with the surrounding context. The landscape reorganizes the circulation system, and an urban forest accompanies the path from the park to the main entrance.
From the foyer, a series of staircases and ramps lead visitors to a cafe from where they can see into the rehearsal spaces of the opera, which can double as performance venues. On top of the horizontal volume, a roof garden accessible from the foyer provides a new layer of public space and is designed to accommodate a wide range of activities, from cultural events to performances.
The two sloping towers creating a V-shape silhouette are designed to reduce shading on the surrounding areas. The layered glass façade provides different levels of transparency to the inward and outward-looking faces of the volumes, primarily programmed for hotel, residential units and office spaces.
