Australia’s $184 Million New Glasshouse Theatre Is a Wavy Masterpiece

The glass facade of Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s (QPAC) new Glasshouse Theatre is, simply put, a showstopper. Seven years in the making, the $184 million project was designed by local Brisbane architectural firm Blight Rayner in partnership with Snøhetta. It showcases the ambition and ingenuity expected from a city slated to host the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics.

The addition makes QPAC the largest performing arts centre in Australia under a single roof, with the new venue expected to attract an additional 300,000 visitors each year.

The Glasshouse Theatre’s design draws on the cultural significance of its site in the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Yuggera peoples, as well as its history as a place of storytelling and performance.

With an area of 13,423 square metres and capacity for 1500 people, Glasshouse Theatre is formidable, magnified by two tiers of seven-metre-high glass panels. The facade’s wavy form references a poem by Aboriginal Elder and artist Aunty Lilla Watson, which describes the ripples created on the Brisbane River by wind, tides and fish.

“The facade is both the most striking visual and experiential element of the architecture and also provides a transparency that minimises the building’s visual mass,” says Michael Rayner, director of Blight Rayner. It also provides a kind of public theatre for passersby, with activity inside the foyer visible from street level, distorted by the curved glass.

Seven skylights represent Queensland’s seven watersheds, drawing on research by First Nations Elder Aunty Colleen Wall. “We met with Aunty Colleen and other First Nations stakeholders on several occasions to gain deeper understanding of the research work, noting, for example, how the site was historically a place of performance,” Rayner says. At the entry forecourt is Torres Strait Islander artist Brian Robinson’s Floriate, a monumental bronze sculpture depicting seven native flowering plants found across the watersheds.

The brief asked for the theatre to function as if it were a finely tuned instrument. The two-level balcony auditorium is wrapped in grey ironbark timber with verdant carpet underfoot. The seat furthest from the stage is a mere 28 metres away. An orchestra pit features three floor sections that can be raised and lowered in five different configurations, and an automated fly system lets performers and stage installations soar above the crowd. Its versatility allows the venue to house theatre productions, ballet, musicals, dance and opera 

Currently, the Glasshouse Theatre is presenting hit musical The Book of Mormon, with Fiddler on the Roof, Into the Woods and The Nutcracker also slated to run later this year.

Glasshouse Theatre

Corner of Russell Street and Grey Street, South Brisbane
qpac.com.au