Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay, Singapore
Iconic twin-domed arts centre whose spiky aluminium sunshades earned it the nickname "the Durian".
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Esplanade in Singapore starts with the withering reviews that greeted DP Architects and Michael Wilford's 1994 design for the national arts centre, and the tropical-sun problem that sent them back to the drawing board. You'll hear how the team reworked the domes' skin panel by panel, and why Singaporeans reached for a very particular piece of local fruit to describe the result. Inside, acoustician Russell Johnson had his own puzzle to solve for a concert hall built to serve two very different musical traditions.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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