Fire Strikes Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House

Published: May 12, 2009

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GUANGZHOU, China—China's Guangzhou Opera House caught fire last weekend and was extinguished within an hour, but the extent of the damage has not been determined, the Architect's Journal reports. The project, which has a price tag of £65 million ($99 million), was expected to open later this year as China’s third-largest theater.

A statement from the office of Zaha Hadid, the project's superstar architect, said that all staff were evacuated safely with no injuries and that no members of the public were involved. The cause of the fire is being investigated, and the results will determine if the opening date needs to be changed, the statement added.

Hadid’s opera house is not the first high-profile building to catch fire in China this year. In February, Rem Koolhaas’s Television Cultural Centre tower in Beijing went up in flames, ignited by illegal fireworks from new year celebrations. At least one person was killed and an undisclosed number injured.

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Opera Houses are a source of civic pride in China and are frequently designed by such foreigners as Hadid, French architect Paul Andreu (Beijing), and Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott (Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Zhengdong New Town, and Dongguan).

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