ARCHITECTURAL FOCUS
THE GLASSHOUSE THEATER
BRISBANE’ S NEW THEATRE BLURS CITY AND STAGE
Queensland Performing Arts Centre’ s( QPAC) new Glasshouse Theater in South Bank is a sight to behold, defined by its rippling glass façade and its ambition to reframe how a major cultural building engages with the city. Designed by Blight Rayner Architecture in partnership with Snøhetta, the 1,500-seat venue makes QPAC the largest performing arts centre under one roof in the country and capable of presenting world-class ballet, dance, symphony, opera, theater, and musicals to the same standard. Blight Rayner and Snøhetta won the international design competition for the project in May 2019. The brief had allowed for the building to cantilever some six meters out on its two street frontages in order to fit the required size onto the site, over the preexisting Playhouse Green.
Transparent Edge- The architects’ idea was to create a highly transparent edge to the cantilever to minimize its visual impact. Seen through it, the theater‘ block’ aligns with the existing building design as one part of the strategy to respect the heritage status of QPAC and Queensland Cultural Precinct architect Robin Gibson AO. The idea of undulating the glass façade emanated from a prose-poem written by Aboriginal Elder and artist Lilla Watson, which referred to ripples of the Brisbane River and fish swimming underneath the surface.
“ We thought to make the transparent façade a setting for a kind of public theater where people in the foyers would be seen variously clear and blurred from the
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