Arts and culture

Arts venues are where society shares its most important ideas. They provide spaces for extraordinary performances that engage every sense. As works of architecture, they are often artistic achievements in themselves, inspiring and uplifting the audiences they serve.

We have played a defining role in shaping and designing some of the world’s most celebrated cultural buildings. Working closely with our clients, we create projects centered on human experience while also helping them understand how each project connects to the broader urban landscape of transportation systems, and public and private spaces.

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Our work spans the design and operation of every kind of cultural building and performance venue:

Arts and culture: artistic collaborations

From cave paintings to modern sculptures and immersive 3D sound installations built with advanced technology, bringing an artist’s vision to life is essential for our creative spirit and for artistic spaces to flourish. Arup partners with artists on projects of every scale.

Björk commissioned Arup to create an acoustic reverberation chamber for her Cornucopia tour.

Arup has had the privilege of working with renowned and emerging artists, musicians, sculptors and festivals worldwide. Whether it’s a giant angel by the sea, being inside the head of a rock music god, or experiencing a scarily real audiobook, the artists who shared their seeds of inspiration – and the inventive engineers who helped make their complex ambitions tangible – remind us why art in its many forms has existed in our lives since time began.

Arup engineers helped Antony Gormley to realise his 'Angel of the North' sculpture which stands 20 metres tall with a wingspan of 54 metres.

Arup’s arts and culture team is full of artists – the talented and curious – and this helps us to work as true partners to some of the art world’s most visionary practitioners, helping to bring novel or innovative artistic experiences to life.

Case study

Reverberation Chamber for Bjork's Cornucopia

Combining elements of live theatre, immersive media, and musical ensemble, Björk pushes the boundaries of the live concert experience. In her latest show, she sought to capture the intimacy of singing live in a small room, unaided by traditional stage amplification and audio processing.

She commissioned Arup to design an acoustic reverberation chamber as part of the touring set — a unique approach to live stage performance that projects an encapsulated and intimate moment to a large-scale audience. The reverb chamber becomes both sanctuary and instrument, enabling Björk to sing in a naturally enveloping acoustic.

Based on previous experience with our SoundLab, Björk approached us for our ability to model and simulate the immersive experience of singing in the chamber. She challenged the Arup team to evaluate a wide variety of shapes and materials and relied on us to consider every implication of the chamber: acoustics first, but also audience sightlines, weight, portability, and durability in a touring environment.

Arts and culture: digital experiences

Digital technology is allowing venues to turn what they know about their visitors into new experiences, while providing owners and operators with greater control over maintenance and budgets.

The installation of the Lou Reed Listening Room at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Arup has pioneered digital tools’ ability to improve the physical world, designing and implementing innovative technologies that bring new levels of immersion and delight to arts environments. Our work on the Virginia Tech CreateCube represents the coming shift to hybrid environments, where digital technologies are used to enhance the experience of physical art.

Our SoundLab modelling suite allows clients and public to experience how venues will look, feel, and sound, before they are built. We’ve even used these tools in creative collaboration with artists and musicians like Lou Reed and Nick Cave, producing immersive spatial experiences for the listener. And our MassMotion tool provides valuable data-driven insights into the movement of people in public spaces, informing better design choices.

Case study

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio

Many of Arup’s designers are also active musicians, artists, and performers, so we were eager to apply these skills to capture live arts and music. A series of experiments led us to our initial collaboration with Lou Reed in 2009 to capture a landmark performance in full spatial audio.

Reed worked with Arup to record two performances of his Metal Machine Trio at New York’s Blender Theater in 2009. After hearing the 13.4 channel mix replayed in our SoundLab, he was extremely pleased, pronouncing the recording “the best live recording I’ve ever heard!”

Eager to have the work experienced in a similar setting to Arup’s SoundLab, a concept was developed for an installation, which was first presented at the California State Long Beach University Art Museum in 2012.

Reed’s passing in 2013 added a new level of significance to our partnership, with the installation now becoming an extension of the artist’s sonic ambitions and legacy.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center mounts Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars, the first large-scale exhibition from Reed’s archive starting on June 9, 2022, through March 4, 2023. The exhibition will display the life and work of the icon whose profound influence—musically, visually, and culturally—still affects a range of artists and writers today.

In addition to a daily presentation of Metal Machine Trio, over the duration of the exhibit, the Arup-designed Lou Reed Listening Room will enable visitors to experience a range of Reed’s discography in the original intended format including mono, stereo, quadraphonic and full ambisonic spatial audio. The Listening Room is an immersive total architecture, acoustic, audio, visual, and lighting experience, designed by Arup, draws upon our expertise in studio and venue design, exhibit design, 3D recording techniques and spatial presentation. Audio will be delivered on a 13.4 loudspeaker system as Reed first heard it, and perhaps as he always wanted to hear it, LOUD!

Arts and culture: engineering experiences

Arup understands the performance environment across every dimension. Our aim is always to realise the architect’s vision within the design and engineering, such that completed venue performs as well as the artists who will appear in them.

The Menil campus is anchored by Renzo Piano’s first American building, the Menil Collection - in order to allow uniform daylighting in the gallery spaces and achieve the architectural form desired, Arup developed a system to supply air to the galleries from below, now known as ‘displacement’ ventilation.

We understand every dimension of the performance environment. Our aim is always to realise the architect’s vision within the design and engineering, such that completed venue performs as well as the artists who will appear in them.

We bring a rigorous understanding of how the precise interplay of acoustics, materials, lighting, shape and space will produce spaces suitable for every kind of cultural encounter, from art to music, film-making to broadcast facilities.

Understanding the combination of design and engineering choices that will produce a positive visitor experience is central to successful cultural buildings. For venues, backstage and auditorium must work hand-in-glove to produce an effective environment for performers, crew and audience alike. Security, object conservation, lighting design are all central to museums and galleries. Arup’s range of specialist design disciplines play a big role in producing these experiences. Our world-class expertise in acoustics and theatre consulting is pivotal to venues the world over.

Our daylighting expertise has been refined over decades, protecting artworks from the harsh Texas sunlight at the Menil Collection to our recent work on Jumex Museum, Mexico. We also advise on the most appropriate MEP solution for a project. We found innovative ways to reduce energy use by 30% at the V&A Museum’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, which must carefully house many delicate, centuries old treasures.

Case study

The National Taichung Theater

Since its opening in September 2016, The National Taichung Threater has established itself not only as a new hub for performing arts in Taiwan but as a ground-breaking architectural landmark in its own right.

As one of the most structural ambitious spaces we have worked on since the Sydney opera house, the National Taichung Theater has rewritten the rulebook. Its standout geometries – a doubly curved shell and continuous single surface interior – could not have been achieved even a decade ago. State-of-the-art computational tools and innovative construction techniques have made it possible.

Arts and culture: libraries

Libraries are reinventing themselves in the 21^st century, re-establishing their place at the heart of communities.

Designed by Sir Colin St John Wilson with 120,000m2 of space over 14 floors, the new British Library would be the largest public building constructed in the UK in the 20th century. Arup's team developed their finite element computer programme, SAFE, to model and test how the foundations would behave.

To ensure long term viability and relevance, many libraries are diversifying the services they offer, becoming innovative spaces that support new ways of learning, storing and accessing information. They’re also increasingly used for community and cultural events.

Our approach combines real understanding of what local users need, and a library’s own history and collection, before developing cost-effective but inspiring design solutions.

Arup has worked on prestigious libraries worldwide including the British Library London, the largest national library in the world, a building that presented complex underground, structural and acoustics challenges, and housing 120 million books and print items.

Case study

Amsterdam Public Library

Amsterdam’s OBA Oosterdok library required a renovation that could consolidate it as a leading destination for both locals and visitors to read, learn and meet up. The goal was to create innovative, adaptable new learning spaces, hangout areas and a building capable of catering to new ways of learning – digital and analogue – while keeping the library’s collection of 1.1 million books as centrepiece.

While maintaining and upgrading the existing services such as piping and ventilation, Arup designed spaces that could transform with the needs of the library’s patrons. Now the library has spaces for community meetings and casual hangouts; freelance workspaces and places for startup businesses to network. All in a sustainable structure that can change in future, as ways of learning will certainly change, too.

Arts and culture: museums and galleries

Museums and galleries are among the most architecturally impressive buildings in the world. Their design often reflects a country’s or city’s history, ambitions, and sense of identity.

International African American Museum (IAAM) is devoted to revealing the journeys of millions of African slaves to the Americas, and to exploring their ensuing culture, influence and struggle toward justice and equality. Arup collaborated with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Moody Nolan, the museum’s designers, to incorporate engineering services that uphold the design’s elegant and gracious aesthetic amidst the challenging environmental and programmatic constraints of having a 42,000-sq-ft space by the water’s edge.

For over 50 years Arup has collaborated with leading architects to deliver an inspiring list of well-loved museums and galleries. Our international repertoire comprises the renovation of museums and galleries in heritage buildings as well designing new exciting facilities for exhibitions.

Arup has a strong reputation for its arts building designs. We also have the skills to reinvent these buildings for the future. We are committed in our approach to achieving the best and most efficient and sustainable designs for museums and galleries, ensuring the preservation and display of collections for future generations.

Case study

The Art Gallery of New South Wales' Sydney Modern Project

From conception to completion, we worked on the award winning Sydney Modern project, a new wing extension of the Art Gallery of NSW. Arup provided more than 15 disciplines, including civil, structural, and acoustic consulting, lighting design, fire and hydraulic engineering and security advisory services.

Arts and culture: performing arts

Performing arts venues can be used for a variety of events ranging from concerts, recitals, drama, dance, and opera. These buildings have an important part to play for communities and in some cases may be a community’s only access to the performing arts.

The Sydney Opera House, perhaps Arup's most famous project

We design spaces that can adapt use for a variety of settings from amplified performance to spoken word and natural acoustic concerts. Understanding the way spaces will be used, the different users, requirements and experience is crucial to design success.

Our expertise includes new venues and existing and heritage venues that have evolved over time. Improvements in acoustic and theatre technology allow an increased range of uses of performing arts venues, particularly for heritage buildings and being upgraded for contemporary use. Our multidisciplinary specialists and theatre experts collaborate closely with architects and clients to create leading edge user experiences in performing arts venues.

Case study

Sydney Opera House

In the early 1950’s, our founder, Ove Arup, was engaged to undertake the structural design of the Sydney Opera House alongside Danish architect Jørn Utzon. Since then, we have continued our relationship with the Opera House, in over 300 projects, spanning 60 years, from repairs to refurbishments through our many different services, including acoustics, civil engineering, structural engineering, theatre planning, security, building diagnostics, façade engineering, fire engineering and pedestrian planning.