The creation of the Beijing Opera House

From the beginning, there was a defiant feeling. Both creators and their creations need to go beyond the status quo, to take risks and to find new horizons. This was the thinking of Paul Andreu, a partner at the Aéroports de Paris, when he decided to compete for the project of designing the Beijing Opera House. He challenged the normal rules very early on by giving priority to the coherence of the project and his vision of it. He won the project by consistently defying the rules. What followed was a creative process fuelled by feelings ranging from panic and doubt to enthusiasm, together with research and work. It was a group effort which meant that it had to be organised so that every person in this very diverse team could put forward his ideas, but that in the end, everyone had to move forward together in the direction dictated by the architect. This story is about a building site in China, where work was carried out in economic conditions which favoured a specific architectural design, and where ideas were able to change right up until the moment they were put into practice.