Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia is Valencia’s opera house and performing-arts venue, designed by Santiago Calatrava as an urban landmark within the City of Arts and Sciences. Its immense curved metal roof stretches across a building that rises 75 metres and extends 230 metres in length. Beneath that shelter, the complex contains four auditoriums, including a main hall with room for 1,470 people and an orchestra pit designed for 120 musicians.

The hall can accommodate two complete opera settings, allowing different productions to be presented on successive days. The building opened on 8 October 2005, and its opening opera was Beethoven’s Fidelio on 25 October 2006. Plácido Domingo has kept a close connection with Les Arts since its creation and established a training programme for young singers here.

The building’s early history also includes dramatic setbacks: the main stage platform collapsed under a complete Don Giovanni set in December 2006, and floods in November 2007 sent almost 2 metres of water into the lower levels, damaging stage machinery and electronics. Look at the sweeping roofline and the layered structure beneath it: this is performance architecture made unmistakably monumental.