The Royal Opera House Bridge

ABOUT

This competition entry for a glass bridge creates an illusion of lightness and delight through a dialogue between materials, geometry and structure interacting with the phenomena of light.

This bridge connects both buildings for the students to use back and forth on their way to classes. The inner surfaces of the translucent and transparent side walls of the bridge have a semi-reflective coating applied to them which internally reflects the image of the sky overhead so the students will see their own reflection merged with the reflected image of the sky.

Due to the position of the bridge, it is always seen against the sky, producing a natural silhouetted image. Like the Opera House stage, the bridge has an ‘audience side’ against which the shadow images are projected, and a ‘back of house’ side where the illusion is created. From Bow Street, the abstract screen of translucent and semi-reflective glass captures the daily movement of students, while from the Covent Garden direction, one sees the figures framed clearly through the transparent surface against the translucent ‘stage’ wall. The bridge has the potential to function as an additional ‘stage’ upon which specially commissioned works might be performed for audiences seated within Floral Street, thereby extending the Royal Opera House/Royal Ballet School activities to a wider public.