Vienna State Opera
The opera house was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstrasse commissioned by the Viennese "city expansion fund". Work commenced on the house in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll. It was built in the Neo-Renaissance style by the renowned Czech architect and contractor Josef Hlávka.
Guangzhou Opera House
The structure was designed by Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. It is conceived as two rocks washed away by the Pearl River. Its freestanding concrete auditorium set within an exposed granite and glass-clad steel frame took over five years to build, and was praised upon opening by architectural critic Jonathan Glancey in "The Guardian", who called it "at once highly theatrical and insistently subtle."