Wales Millennium Centre
This icon of Cardiff’s redeveloped docklands opened in November 2004. It contains a 1,900-seat theatre and a 250-seat studio theatre, and provides a base for several artistic organisations.
Wales Millennium Centre grew out of proposals in the early 1990s to create a new home in Cardiff for Welsh National Opera. Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid won the competition, but the opera house failed to secure the necessary funding. The Centre was conceived, for the same site, as a centre with a broader artistic remit.
A key aim (of both projects) was to provide a stage for touring musicals, ballets and other large-scale productions, for which Cardiff’s earlier theatres were too small.
Wales Millennium Centre is also a creative organisation in its own right, increasingly producing its own touring work and curating high-profile festivals and engagement projects. As well as providing a year-round programme of theatre performances, the Centre is open for visitors daily from 10am where you’ll find the UK’s biggest range of free performances on the Glanfa stage. Ffwrnais, in the concourse, is a café-bar and place to work, relax and meet.
The Centre is also home to BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the BBC Hoddinott Hall hosts public performances. Other groups based here include Hijinx Theatre, Literature Wales (formerly Academi), Welsh National Opera and National Dance Company Wales (formerly Diversions). WNO performs three seasons per year at the Centre.
Tŷ Cerdd music centre, also at the Centre, provides a recording studio and other facilities for musicians. Urdd Gobaith Cymru (Welsh youth organisation) has a hostel in the Centre which gives young people from across Wales an insight into the arts and into their capital city. Two Rhythms provides creative therapy sessions at the Centre for disabled people. The Centre’s Radio Platform is a youth-led radio station, workshop and training space.
The Centre was designed by Jonathan Adams, of Capita Percy Thomas. It is shaped to echo the undulating landscapes of Wales. Waste slate from various Welsh quarries was arranged in layers of different shades to represent geological strata.
The copper structure above the front entrance represents Wales’ once-prolific copper industry. It’s pierced with giant letters which spell out inscriptions by poet Gwyneth Lewis: “In these stones, horizons sing” and “Creu gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen”. The letters are illuminated by the buildings interior lighting at night. The Welsh inscription translates as: “Forging truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration."
To hear the words in Welsh, press play: Or, download mp3 (33KB)
The Centre’s construction cost £106m. Funding came from several sources including the Welsh Government and National Lottery Millennium Fund. The photos show the frontage at night in 2013 and the Centre under construction in 2002.
In 2023 a purple plaque was unveiled inside the Centre to honour jazz singer Patti Flynn.
Postcode: CF10 5AL View Location Map
What’s on at the Centre - WMC website
 |
  |