National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing

The National Centre for the Performing Arts rises beside Chang'an Avenue as an enormous shell of titanium and glass floating on a lake. The French architect Paul Andreu, best known for his airport terminals, designed it as a single ellipsoidal dome that holds three separate theatres. Construction began in December 2001 and the centre opened in December 2007, a short walk west of Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People and close to the Forbidden City — a daring piece of futurism set down in the most symbolic corner of the capital.

The numbers explain the effect. The dome is about 212 metres long, 144 metres wide and 46 metres high, clad in more than 18,000 titanium plates, with a seam of over a thousand panels of ultra-clear glass running down the middle like a curtain being drawn apart. It sits in an artificial lake of more than 34,000 square metres, whose water is kept from freezing in winter by circulating groundwater, so that the reflection completes the curve into an unbroken oval. Beijingers quickly nicknamed it "the boiled egg". By day the metal takes on the colour of the sky; after dark the glass slit glows and the whole shell seems lit from within.

There is no conventional front door. Visitors walk down and along a corridor of some 80 metres that passes beneath the lake, with water visible overhead, before emerging into the great lobby under the dome. Inside are an opera hall of just over 2,200 seats, a concert hall of about 1,860 and a theatre of about 1,040, stacked within the shell with their own acoustic envelopes. The building was controversial when it was announced, and it remains a striking contrast with its monumental neighbours — which is exactly why it is worth seeing.

Getting there

The centre stands in central Beijing, about a kilometre from the heart of the city at Tiananmen Square. The nearest station is Tian'anmen Xi on Line 1 of the Beijing Subway; exit C leads into an underground passage to the theatre. Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) is about 26 km away.