Venue: Cardiff Bay Opera House
Town: Cardiff, GB

Cardiff Bay Opera House was a proposed centre for the performing arts in Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, Wales, conceived in the 1990s as a crucial part of the Cardiff Bay redevelopment project. One aim of the scheme was to create a new home for the Welsh National Opera company, which was then based in the New Theatre in Cardiff. The Wales Millennium Centre was built in its place and it opened in 2004. The plan, supported by the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, was to construct a permanent home for Welsh National Opera on a site near the Inner Harbour, Cardiff Bay. An international design competition was held and was eventually won by the Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid. The Hadid design was called the Crystal Necklace by some in the media. However, the project failed to win financial support from the Millennium Commission, the body which distributed funds from the UK National Lottery. An international design competition was established by the Cardiff Bay Opera House Trust to decide on the architect for the project. The competition would eventually be in two rounds. The first round of the competition attracted 268 international competitors; it was won by Iraq-born architect Zaha Hadid. The list of architectural practices that took part in the competition included Itsuko Hasegawa, Mario Botta, Rem Koolhaas, Rafael Moneo, Manfredi Nicoletti, Pietro Marcozzi Architect, Rusli Associates, Werner Seligmann & Associates, Percy Thomas Partnership and Greg Lynn FORM. Her avant-garde design was a glass structure that surrounded the main theatre. However, her design was deemed so radical that Lord Crickhowell, as chair of the Cardiff Bay Opera House Trust, asked Hadid to submit her design again along with Norman Foster + Partners and Manfredi Nicoletti, who were asked to submit revised designs, for a second round of competition. But she again won both this and a third round. She remained confident of eventual success: ‘Give them time and space to understand. The problem is that peop