The finalists for the Opera of the Future competition have been announced. This urban planning competition, commissioned by the state capital of Düseldorf, was created to select a location for the new cultural institution. After an extensive examination of potential site locations, the two options for the competition proposals were: Heinrich-Heiene-Allee, where the current opera house is, and Am Wehrhahn.
Throughout the brief, firms were encouraged to figure out how this future project could become a lively and public space open to the entire city, offering a wide range of services. As a result, submissions were received for both prospective buildings, and the finalists for each location were announced.
For the Heinrich-Heine-Allee location, the front-runners are:
Snøhetta, Oslo (Architecture | Urban Planning | Landscape Architecture)
A design that surprises, a design that stimulates, but also a design that can and must be discussed. It convinces with the idea of a 24° rotation of the main axis of the opera, based on the axis of the Jägerhofallee. This allows a well organized longitudinal development from the backstage to the control room of about 67 meters. Likewise, the concentration of all functional elements on Heinrich-Heine-Allee and Ludwig-Zimmermann-Strasse is coherent, creating a relatively freely playable forum and foyer zone towards the courtyard garden, which is highly attractive, can connect the public spaces within the building well and opens up interesting development scope for its final sculptural form.
Henning Larsen Architects, Munich (architecture | urban planning | landscape architecture) with Meyer Architekten, Düsseldorf (architecture)
The volume of the building is appropriate and well-placed. It reacts strikingly to the urban situation by forming two sides: A curved one to the courtyard garden, and a straight edge to the adjacent perimeter block development to the south. This intention is a consequence of the consideration of the tree population. The transitions of the themes are abrupt and to the block edge of Ludwig-Zimmermann-Strasse clearly less formulated. This is controversially discussed, especially since the sides facing the block edge act as a back and offers little interaction with the urban space in terms of use. The uniform eaves edge of the street space should serve as a reference but is not observed.
ingenhoven associates, Düsseldorf (architecture) with West 8, Rotterdam (urban planning | landscape architecture)
The jury appreciates the urban planning approach of the work to set a semicircular endpoint to the Hofgarten with a compact building developed from the alignments of the urban structure. The circular arc-like conclusion to the north attempts to comprehensibly stage a prominent, new spatial connection between Grabbeplatz and Königsallee as well as to the Hofgarten. The orientation of the stage is rotated by 90 degrees compared to the existing structure. Consequently, in the logic of the design, the actual main entrance of the new opera building is located in the northern area. A wide staircase leads to the foyer intended for the public, which also provides access to the stages.
HPP Architekten, Düsseldorf (architecture | urban planning) with Rehwaldt landscape architects, Dresden (landscape architecture)
The overriding guiding idea of the design is to set an urban keystone at Heinrich-Heine-Allee and Königsallee. The intention succeeds on all sides, since joining the building structure takes up existing spatial edges and silhouettes and implements them in a simple and convincing volumetry. The layering of the structure shows a circumferential opening of the structure in the first floor zone and links the foyer and forum with the courtyard garden and the urban space in equal measure. The flowing spatial transition from the outside to the inside is a sign of the opera's opening into the urban space and into the citizenry.
For the Am Wehrhahn location, the finalists are:
Prof. Jörg Friedrich I Studio PFP, Hamburg (architecture) with Rainer Schmidt landscape architects, Munich (urban planning | landscape architecture)
A solitaire lies in the city and self-confidently, but also unpretentiously, illustrates the special significance of the opera of the future. The peculiarity of its shape loosens the opera in an evolved urban structure and simultaneously enhances its surroundings. The finesse of the edged sculpture is on the one hand the independence of the form and on the other hand the scale in dealing with the spatial edges of the surrounding buildings.
GMP, Berlin (architecture | urban planning) with POLA landscape architecture, Berlin (landscape architecture)
The authors propose to preserve the existing department store in its shell and footprint to a large extent and to convert it into the opera house of the future. Two forward-looking objectives are thus successfully implemented. On the one hand, the preservation of the concrete structure is an essential contribution to CO2 savings/climate neutrality. On the other hand, the conversion from a department store to a cultural center can succeed in placing a low-threshold opera house in the shopping street, which frees itself from the pathos of competing opera houses.
HPP Architekten, Düsseldorf (architecture | urban planning) with Rehwaldt landscape architects, Dresden (landscape architecture)
In the spirit of the competition, the design offers a remarkably well-thought-out structural concept for an opera house of the future integration into the urban space. This is already expressed urbanistically by creating a well-proportioned entrance square at the intersection Am Wehrhahn/Tonhallenstraße. It opens up a clearly visible entrance situation to the opera, the studio stage and the forum, which can be switched separately or in combination. The forum, conceived as a multifunctional area, is a light- flooded "cultural gallery" that acts as a gap between the main uses, serves as a distributor for the various uses, and creates a passage to Oststraße that makes sense from an urban planning point of view.
A jury of specialists from the disciplines of urban planning, architecture, and landscape architecture chose the finalists. The 20 international firms that participated were judged based on urban and spatial quality, formation of the cultural institution and contextual integration in the neighborhood, elaboration of the potential of the locations for further potential usage, and sustainability.
The state capital Düsseldorf is set to begin finalizing a formal and final location for the June 15 city council meeting. At the assembly, the council will discuss and vote on the recommendation. Moreover, based on the selected plot and the competition results, a structural engineering competition will be carried out to move forward with the building of the Opera House.
Some finalists for each location have recently designed other major cultural institutions worldwide. In 2023, Snøhetta Paris was selected to re-imagine Montreuil's French Asylum and Administrative Courts. Henning Larsen, chosen as a finalist for both locations, recently designed the Ørestad Church, the first to be built in Copenhagen in the last 30 years. The Shanghai-based studio, HPP Architects, has also been shortlisted for both locations in the competition. Together with White Arkiteker, they have recently designed a new medical clinic in Tübingen, Germany.
