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Snøhetta designs Saudi opera house inspired by traditional Najdi architecture

2023-12-18T11:45:00-05:00

Snøhetta has unveiled its design for an opera house in Diriyah, on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Inspired by the surrounding desert landscape, local cultural heritage, and Najdi building traditions, the Royal Diriyah Opera House forms part of a wider master plan to redevelop the historic area.

Image credit: Binyan

Both the form and materiality of the opera house respond to a vernacular style in the area known as Najdi, which historically saw mud-brick structures closely clustered to create constant shade. Similarly, the proposed scheme comprises a cluster of buildings connected by open-access passages, responding to the need to shade visitors from the sun.

Image credit: Binyan

The concept behind the design was “the idea of earth from the riverbeds, which crack when exposed to the hot sun, is molded by wind and rain, and then finds a new shape as separate forms.” As a result, the cluster of buildings is imagined as rising from the ground to form open passages across the site. ...

Paolo Soleri Amphitheater featured at SITE Santa Fe Biennial

2016-08-08T01:28:00-04:00

Architect Conrad Skinner’s five-year research project into the history of the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater plays a lead role in much wider than a line, SITE Santa Fe’s 2016 biennial dedicated to new art from the Americas. The exhibition which features 35 artists and two archival projects including Skinner’s, runs at SITE Santa Fe through January 8, 2017.

Skinner’s project introduces visitors to much wider than a line with a 700 square-foot gallery that includes a photographic mural of the Amphitheater from which projects an arcing concrete bench, architect’s drawings reproduced from Soleri’s sketchbooks, and a micaceous clay model of the Amphitheater by artist Eliza Naranjo-Morse.

The Paolo Soleri Amphitheater re-imagined Western theater space by introducing Native American precedents and represented the turning point in Native American arts education that the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) initiated in the mid-1960s. The Amphitheater grew out of a creative collaboration betw...