Kristiansund Opera and Culture Centre
Kristiansund Opera and Cultural Centre will house Norway's oldest opera, dating back to 1805, which every year arranges the Opera Festival Weeks - Norway's largest and most comprehensive presentation of opera and musical theatre and one of Scandinavia’s largest opera festivals.
The vision of the new Opera House is to create a cultural power centre in Kristiansund, the capital of the region of Nordmøre, west of Trondheim – a landmark to the entire region.
Apart from the opera the new cultural centre will house a ballet centre, library, college centre, conference rooms, a restaurant, and a café. The task has been to integrate two existing buildings, one of them the former Folkets Hus, in the new and create a vibrant urban space around the building by connecting the cultural centre with the pedestrian streets, squares and a nearby park.
Kulturkvartalet, as the project made by C. F. Møller Architects is called, unites the different cultural functions in a dynamic and creative environment, centred round the main concert hall. The concert hall has been designed to offer sublime acoustics and super flexible theatre settings.
The Kristiansund Opera is one of several significant cultural buildings designed by C. F. Møller Architects in recent years. These include the Darwin Centre in London, the cocoon shaped extension of the Natural History Museum in London, which contains both Darwin's unique collection and a world-leading science research centre research facilities. C. F. Møller Architects has also been responsible for extension of the Concert Hall Aarhus, which has been doubled in size with a new Symphonic Hall with sublime acoustics and facilities for the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Academy of Music. Furthermore the company has won first prize in the competition for the new Odense Music and Theatre Hall, a cultural centre with four halls and facilities for the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music.
