Palau de les Arts / Valencia Opera House - by Santiago Calatrava

The building is designed with the dual intention of acting as a multi-hall auditorium and creating an urban landmark of a certain monumentality which at the same time plays a role as a dynamic feature of the urban area, consolidating the setting and becoming a symbol of the cityscape of Valencia.

This work should be seen as a vast sculpture with great symbolic content: its nautical forms suggest its closeness to the sea and its setting in the former bed of the River Turia.

The overall form of the building is lenticular, developing under a huge metal roof or “plume” held up by two supports, one at its western end and the other intermediate, with the eastern end of the roof totally projecting. The material par excellence is white concrete, as this forms part of the great structural supports of the building, while the “trencadís” (broken tile effect) is the second most widely used material covering the spectacular “shells” of the Palau.