Wales Millennium Centre () is Wales's national arts centre located in the Cardiff Bay area of Cardiff, Wales. The site covers a total area of . Phase 1 of the building was opened during the weekend of 26–28 November 2004 and phase 2 opened on 22 January 2009 with an inaugural concert.
The centre is Cardiff's principal receiving venue for large-scale opera, ballet, contemporary dance and musicals. It comprises a large theatre and a smaller hall with a shop, bars and a café. It houses the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales and opera, dance, theatre and literature companies, with a total of eight arts organisations in residence.
In 2012 the Centre announced that it would also be a producing company. Its productions across the genres have been performed in London, Edinburgh and Australia. In 2021 and 2024 it was in co-production with the Royal National Theatre.
The main theatre, the Donald Gordon Theatre, has 1,896 seats, and claims to be the second-largest stage in Europe. The BBC Hoddinott Hall seats 350 and the Weston Studio Theatre seats 250.
In 2001 Lord Rowe-Beddoe was appointed chair of Wales Millennium Centre, a company limited by guarantee. Peter Swinburn is the current chair of Wales Millennium Centre.
Background
The failed Cardiff Bay Opera House project
Wales Millennium Centre replaced an earlier project for the site, the Cardiff Bay Opera House, a plan supported by the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation to construct a permanent home for the Welsh National Opera.
An international design competition attracted 268 international applicants, and was won by Iraq-born architect Zaha Hadid. Her avant-garde design was so radical that she and a selection of other applicants were asked to submit revised designs for a second round of competition—which she again won with "a sleek and dazzling complex of sharp lines and surfaces that she compared to an 'inverted necklace'".
In December 1995 the Millennium Commission, the body which distributed funds from the UK National Lottery, decided against lottery funding for the project. It was suggested that the bid failed because of "the unpopular Conservative government's fear of controversy", favouring the funding of projects perceived as more populist, such as the Millennium Stadium.Review by Raymund Ryan of at Metropolis in Review, April 1988
Origins of Wales Millennium Centre After the Cardiff Bay Opera House project was rejected, a new project was conceived that included more than opera and was felt to be a better reflection of Welsh culture. The change of name symbolised this, but the project still had to overcome many hurdles. Funding from the Welsh Assembly and Millennium Commission took years to obtain. Cardiff Council had to buy the land after the previous owner, Grosvenor Waterside (the property division of Associated British Ports) threatened to build a retail centre there due to the delays. Further boosts were given by large donations from South African businessman Donald Gordon and a loan from the international bank, HSBC. The £20 million donation from Donald Gordon was split evenly between the Royal Opera House and Wales Millennium Centre and was spread over five years. This is believed to be the largest single private donation ever made to the arts in the UK.
Phase 1 Donald Gordon Theatre and Weston Studio Theatre
In addition to the two main theatres, the Donald Gordon Theatre and the Weston Studio, the phase 1 of Wales Millennium Centre has several function rooms. Urdd Gobaith Cymru has a hostel with overnight accommodation for 153 people in en suite bedrooms, called the Urdd City Sleepover. It also has a performance and teaching space in the Urdd Hall/Theatre, with 153 retractable seats.
The building also includes rehearsal rooms, orchestral facilities for the Welsh National Opera, dance studios and the Blue Room, with seating for up to 100, for National Dance Company Wales in the Dance House.
There are three bars: the Awen Bar on level 2, the Horizons Bar on level 4, and the Stones Bar on level 5. The café-bar Ffwrnais is situated in the foyer, along with the wine bar One. Free performances occasionally take place in the foyer on the Glanfa stage.
Design and construction
Wales Millennium Centre was designed by Jonathan Adams of local practice Percy Thomas Architects (taken over by Capita Group in 2004Gates, C. PFI fells Welsh giant Building Design, Issue 1630, 18 June 2004, p.1), with Arup Acoustics as the acoustic designer and building engineer. His first concept drawings were made in early 1998, and by 1999 his design had started to look more like the building it is today.
Construction began on 25 February 2002. The main contractor was Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, Kelsey Roofing Industries Ltd was the roofing contractor, and Carr and Angier were theatre consultants. Other contractors included Stent (foundations), Swansea Institute of Higher Education, now part of University of Wales Trinity Saint David (glass), GH James Cyf (stonemasonry), Rimex (stainless steel), Alfred McAlpine (slate), Coed Cymru (wood), Ann Catrin Evans (door furniture) and Amber Hiscott (etchings on glass walls).
The architect's concept was a building that expressed "Welshness" and was instantly recognisable. The building was designed to reflect many different parts of Wales with local Welsh materials that dominate its history: slate, metal, wood and glass. Many of the materials used come from Wales, including 1,350 tonnes of Welsh slate. A million metres of electric cable and 300,000 concrete blocks were also used in construction.
Slate
The exterior of the building is clad in multi-coloured slate collected from Welsh quarries. Narrow windows are built into the layers of slate to give the impression of rock strata in sea cliffs. The purple slate came from the Penrhyn Quarry, the blue from Cwt y Bugail Quarry, the green from the Nantlle Valley, the grey from Llechwedd quarry, and the black from the Corris Quarry. I always loved going to Ogmore and Southerndown. I thought the cliffs there looked like a building anyway. A building capable of withstanding the roughest weather for hundreds of years. The older they get, the better they look. I wondered if it would be possible to make a building which had the same qualities as these magnificent cliffs. To do that I needed a lot of stone. Normal stone for buildings has to be specially cut into blocks; it takes a long time to make and costs a fortune. But in north Wales the historic slate industry has left behind whole mountains of waste stone that no-one wants. This was stone cut from the mountainside for nearly two hundred years but which wasn't good enough to make roof slates. Over 90% was thrown away. But it was ideal for making walls like the one I had in mind... —architect Jonathan Adams
Metal
Wales Millennium Centre's main feature, the bronze coloured dome which covers the Donald Gordon Theatre, is clad in stainless steel. The light bronze colour is an optical effect, rather than an applied colour, and is created by the 'Rimex' chemical process which thickens the transparent oxide coating of the metal to cause light interference, as occurs in natural iridescence. It was designed to withstand the weather conditions on the Cardiff Bay waterfront and to look increasingly better with age. The architect, Jonathan Adams, decided not to use copper and aluminium as they would both change colour with age and weather conditions. We all know that steel making has been important to south Wales, just as slate making has changed the landscape of the north. We have to use a special type of steel that won't go rusty near to the salt-laden, maritime air of Cardiff Bay. This stainless steel will be made near to Pontypool. For the Wales Millennium Centre I thought it was important that the materials should have a "natural" texture, and that they should be instantly recognisable to anyone seeing them, even from a distance. For this reason I felt it was important that the steel of the shell should have the rough grain and the riveted pattern that we think of as more typical of old industrial structures, such as those that used to be commonplace around the landscape of the industrial south. —Jonathan Adams
Wood
Both the inside and outside of the building – including the main Donald Gordon Theatre, the balconies and the rear of the building – are dominated by bands of hardwood lining the walls.
Like the exterior of the building, the principal internal spaces are designed to make the best use of natural materials in their natural state. The structure and detail of the concourse galleries echo the form of the exterior, with the curving strata formed in native hardwoods. Oak, ash, beech, sycamore, alder, birch, chestnut and cherry woods from renewable sources in mid-Wales will be used together in proportions that reflect their relative availability from the forest. The design of the concourse galleries is intended to evoke the image of the edge of the forest, partly as a counterpoint to the coastal nature of the exterior, and partly because the edge of the forest in folklore and mythology represents a line between the real world and the magical world, a line which resembles the front edge of the theatre stage. The form of trees is created by the interweaving curvature of the gallery edges, and by the random positioning of the supporting columns. —Jonathan Adams
Glass
Glass was used to incorporate into the bands of slate. It is thick and was cut and installed by the Architectural Glass Department at Swansea Institute of Higher Education. Glass is not used in the contemporary British architectural style of the glass curtain.
Jonathan Adams said, "The glass veins in the external walls of the Wales Millennium Centre make use of conventional glass in a unique way: the sheets of glass are stacked together and fused in a kiln to form solid blocks."
Calligraphy
Inscribed on the front of the dome, above the main entrance are two lines written by Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis in Welsh and English. The lettering is formed by windows in the upstairs bar areas and is internally illuminated at night.
The idea of this monumental inscription comes from Roman classical architecture. The Romans brought Christianity to these islands, along with the custom of engraving stone. The form of the Celtic cross embodies the cross-fertilisation of indigenous and Roman cultures, from which the Welsh nation first emerged. The monumental inscription is a familiar feature of Roman architecture. The inscription over the entrance of the Wales Millennium Centre is a revival of this classical tradition, and also a recognition of the formative influence of Roman culture upon our nation. We're lucky to have two languages: one that we share with half the world and one which belongs just to us. Words in songs, stories and poems have helped to make Wales the proud country that it is. —Jonathan Adams
Gwyneth Lewis said of the inscription: