Spira Performing Arts Center / Wingårdh Arkitektkontor

Architects: Wingårdh Arkitektkontor – GertWingårdh, Jonas Edblad, Ingrid Gunnarsson
Location: Kulturgatan 3, 553 24 Jönköping, Sweden
Design Team: Andreas Henriksson, Peter Öhman, Claes Berglöf, Viktoria Wallin, Josefine Kastberg, Foued Hajjam, Therese Ahlström, Aron Davidsson, Anna Palm, Dan Danielsson, Helena Toresson, Sara Helder, Viktor Alm, Björn Nilsson, Anna Nyborg Lafveskans, Charlotta Rosell, Jennie Stolpe, Daniel Frickeus, Fredrik Gullberg, Pål Ericksson, Ola Frödell, Robert Hendberg, Peter Sierts
Client: Landstingsfastigheter, Jönköping County
Contractor: PEAB
Gross area: ca 15,000 sqm
Completion: 2011
Photographs: Ulf Celander , Lindman Photography, Gert Wing Ârdh

Spira has four different performing arts venues: a main concert hall that seats 910, a 450-seat theater, a 200-seat black box, and a 200-seat café stage. The building is situated on an artificial peninsula jutting out into Lake Munksjön, right in the center of downtown Jönköping.

The layout follows from a foyer that opens to the west and the sun as it sets over the lake, and from the four main halls strung together along the foyer. To the east lie workshops for everyday activities, and another public building will eventually be erected adjacent to Spira’s east side.

The elevations are vertically striped in opaque bands of white and orange, with transparent bands of clear, orange, and yellow-tinted glass. It is the color of molten glass as it leaves the furnaces of a glassworks—a celebration of Sweden’s glassmaking region.