Wood you believe it’s the best?
PARIS — A French theater that was attacked by far-right vandals has been named the world’s best wooden building, beating an acclaimed Norman Foster cancer care center to the prize.
The Hardelot Elizabethan Theatre near Boulogne on the English Channel coast was praised as “a masterpiece ... magnetic in the manner of the Bilbao Guggenheim” by the architectural press, with French news weekly L’Obs saying: “If the exterior is astonishing, the interior is an enchantment.”
The groundbreaking round auditorium — which can double as baroque opera house — beat out Lord Foster’s Maggie’s cancer care center in Manchester and buildings in the United States, China and Poland to the World Architecture News award on Wednesday.
Days before its completion, the theater was sprayed with graffiti in an attack blamed on far-right activists who called it a “carbuncle” and questioned its cost in the run-up to elections in 2016.
Its architect Andrew Todd hit back at the time saying that at $5.2 million it was a “bargain” and that with its natural ventilation making it “ecologically light years ahead of any similar building” in France, it consumed less energy annually than an average adult.
Former French president Francois Hollande also praised the building and condemned the attack. He made his first public appearance there with his partner actress, Julie Gayet.
Part of the Entente Cordiale Cultural Center, the 388-seat theater was inaugurated on the day of the result of the Brexit referendum in 2016, when British voters turned their back on the EU.
Its English born-architect has since applied for French nationality.
“It is fantastic to have global recognition for a project that experienced such difficulties and found itself in such a delicate geopolitical situation,” Paris-based Todd said.