Project: The Opera, Copenhagen | Denmark
Architect: Henning Larsen Architects, Copenhagen | Denmark
Fabricator: Sign Partner A/S, Esbjerg & Grønbech Construction A/S, Copenhagen | Denmark
Year of Construction: 2004
Product: ALUCOBOND® Silver Metallic
Construction: Cassette SZ20
The City of Copenhagen has received a new landmark, The Opera donated by the A.P. Møller and Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller Foundation.
The architect, Henning Larsen, was given a demanding commission: Build a world-class opera and ballet house, with acoustics that distil the experience of several centuries and integrate the latest practical and scientific advances. Use technical solutions that have hardly yet been imagined. Give artists and theatre staff the best possible facilities. Don‘t forget that at the end of the day, it is all about the experiences of the theatregoers. And finally, create architecture which will make visiting The Opera an experience in itself. The Opera‘s most characteristic feature is the huge flat roof, cantilevering 32 metres out over the arrival plaza with a diagonal cantilever of 38 metres in the corners. In order to satisfy the architect‘s vision of a light and floating expression the roof thickness graduates from three metres in the centre to twenty centimetres at the edges. The 90 x 158 metre roof is based on a steel box construction covered with 14 000 sqm. of standing seam, stainless steel roof panels. The substructure for the 9 000 sqm. roof soffit is a cold formed thin gauge steel structure covered with mat ALUCOBOND® composite panels, designed and produced by Grønbech Construction A/S. The architect‘s design called for 600 x 3 000 mm panels with 8 mm joints. The small joints were an enormous challenge to the tolerance of each panel, to the surveyor‘s setting out and to the final erection of the panels in order to achieve a flat soffit reflecting the towers and spires of Copenhagen.