SHANGHAI, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Shanghai's new Oriental Arts Center has launched its first week of public programs in a vast complex designed by French architect Paul Andreu.
The new center contains the city's first major auditorium for music, according to a report Monday in The China Daily.
The inaugural concert was held in the 1,953-seat concert hall on New Year's Eve and the other facilities of the center are opening this week. They include a smaller concert space, a 1,020-seat opera house, a 333-seat theater, and an exhibition hall, a total of five components all designed to suggest the open petals of a flower and illuminated at night in rainbow colors. The entire complex cost the city $120 million.
The center brings this city of 16 million into line culturally with other great world cities, according to the China Daily report.
Andreu was chosen as architect on the basis of his design for the highly successful National Theater in Beijing. He also was architect of the air terminal that collapsed last spring at Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, but design of the building was not held responsible by French authorities.
