The Spira Performing Arts Center, designed by Wingardh Arkitektkontor, is located in the center of downtown Jönköping on an artificial peninsula looking over Lake Munksjön. The building won first prize in an invited competition in 2007, and the design was turned into reality by 2011. It’s a geometric structure with sheets of orange and yellow tinted glass for walls – glass that looks as if it is hot and molten, in various stages between liquid and solid, smoldering and cold. This resemblance is meant to pay homage to Sweden’s glassmaking region where it stands, and when the sun sets over the lake in the West, the light that soaks the blonde wood of the interior lobby has a warm, inviting filter.
The structure houses a 910-seat main concert hall, a 450-seat theater, a black box and a café stage – the latter two both seat 200. Each individual space connected by the sleek, geometric, molten-glass inspired lobby is equally impressive in its own way; the main concert hall is wide, open and bright, lit with white lights that drip down the walls. The hall is capped off with a black ceiling spotted with white lights – making it feel like it is not capped off at all, but instead like it’s being lifted up by a night sky, supported by openness. Another space is colored in with seats of various shades of greens, browns and earthy yellows lined up in a sporadic order, and the stairs are lit with blue lights. The bold colors are oddly calming, though, as if the overstimulation has a mellowing effect.
July 24, 2013
British Higher School of Art and Design
Shenkar
Central Saint Martins
Parsons
LOFT 42
World Architecture Festival
