Project Location: Beijing
Roof Area: 41,000 m²
Roof System: Hoogovens® H65 Aluminum Magnesium Manganese Roof System hanging titanium alloy composite decorative panel
Project Profile:
The National Grand Theater, one of the landmark buildings of the new "Sixteen Sights of Beijing", is located in the center of Beijing, on the west side of Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People, the south side of Zhongnanhai. The National Grand Theatre comprises the main edifice, the sub-aquatic promenade on its northern and southern sides, an underground parking facility, an artificial lake, and verdant surroundings. The external steel structure of the building is semi-ellipsoidal in shape, with a plane projection length of 212.20 meters along its east-west long axis and a short axis length of 143.64 meters along its north-south direction. The height of the building stands at 46.285 meters, while the foundation reaches as deep as -32.5 meters, equivalent to that of a ten-story building. The Grand Theater's shell is composed of over 18,000 titanium metal panels that have been spliced together, covering an area exceeding 30,000 square meters. This makes it the largest building with a titanium alloy curtain in the world today. Out of these thousands of panels, only four are identical in shape. The central portion of the curtain wall features a gradual glass facade, comprising over 1,200 pieces of ultra-clear glass. These two materials are seamlessly integrated to form elegant curves that evoke the imagery of a slowly opening stage curtain. Surrounding the ellipsoid structure is an artificial lake spanning 35,500 square meters, with various channels and entrances located beneath its surface.
The China National Grand Theater is innovative, avant-garde and uniquely conceived, combining tradition and modernity, romance and reality. The Grand Theater's colossal oval shape presents itself as a celestial visitor on Chang'an Avenue, and its juxtaposition with the surrounding environment accentuates its prominence. This "theater within a city, and a city within a theater" manifests as an extraordinary "pearl in the lake," dedicated to ushering in an unimaginable new era. The National Grand Theater of China aims to convey the inner vitality that lies beneath its serene exterior. Like a simple eggshell nurturing life within, the Grand Theater symbolizes both an end and a beginning.
Its building shape is a super-large hyperbolic gradual form, and the conventional metal envelope system cannot meet the functional requirements of waterproofing and external titanium metal decoration. Ultimately, the project opted for HGV65 Roof System, which fulfilled both structural demands of the roof and realized the architect's vision. The HGV65 Roof System's unique structure eliminates hidden water leakage caused by screw penetration and fixing. Hoogovens' fan-shaped bending panel manufacturing technology, combined with the high strength and excellent flexibility of Al-Mg-Mn alloy, results in a perfectly designed shape. The exceptional weldability of the aluminum alloy panel also eliminates the potential risk of water leakage caused by the transverse overlap of the roof panel, thereby enhancing the reliability and aesthetics of the connection between the metal roof system and the glass curtain wall.
After extensive analysis and modeling, the design team of Hoogovens successfully addressed the issue of radial and latitudinal stress expansion in the metal enclosure system by dividing the entire building shape into five layers and strategically implementing the HGV65 Roof System for each layer.
The project consists of over 18,000 distinct external titanium metal panels with varying shapes. Addressing the structural system of the external titanium decorative panel to meet architectural and hyperbolic modeling gradient angle requirements poses a challenge for the design team at Hoogovens. After extensive modeling, calculation, and analysis of the structural force system, the design team ultimately opted for a custom fixture with an opposing keel to address stress and architectural modeling issues related to the external hanging titanium metal panel.
Main Awards:
On December 19, 2008, the National Grand Theater of China won the Luban Prize for Construction Project.
On October 28, 2009, the National Grand Theater was selected as one of the "100 Classic and Excellent Projects" in the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China.
Part of the content is selected from Baidu Encyclopedia
