It’s been 20 years since the Wales Millennium Centre opened its doors for the first time.
Since 26 November 2004, it has hosted world-class performances from entertainers including Van Morrison, Derren Brown, Rhod Gilbert, and even Welsh legend, Sir Tom Jones.
“Here we have this perfect place to tell stories on a large scale, big stories about who we are, where we’ve come from and where we are going, and to tell them in here is just perfect,” said actor Michael Sheen about appearing at the Cardiff venue.
It has become a home for arts and culture in Wales, but it took a lot of planning to get the iconic venue built.
“I began working on the project in 1998,” said architect Jonathan Adams.
“There had been an earlier project called the Cardiff Bay Opera House, that was in the early nineties, and that didn’t go ahead.”
The Cardiff Bay Opera House was intended to be home to the Welsh National Opera, but the project fell through.
However, following funding from the Millennium Commission and the Welsh government, the Wales Millennium Centre was born.
“I started with was photographs, pictures from books of Welsh landscapes, natural landscapes, coastline, cliffs and photographs of industrial relics,” said Mr Adams.
The design he settled upon is now affectionately referred to as The Armadillo – its distinctive shape becoming a familiar Cardiff Bay landmark.
“It’s not copper,” said Mr Adams, despite its distinctive colour.
“It’s actually a transparent skin on the top of the metal, and light interference gives the illusion of this kind of light bronzy colour to it.”
Aside from its metallic look, the Wales Millennium Centre is renowned for the enormous inscription that makes up much of its windows.
“The words have held their own,” said poet Gwyneth Lewis, who wrote the inscription.
“I remember when the building first opened, a child commented that it looks like the building is dreaming.”
The inscription reads “In These Stones, Horizons Sing”.
“Nothing like that had been done,” said Mr Adams.
“It gives it kind of almost like a kind of spiritual feeling when you look in this, the coloured light, the way the light filters through it.
“It is architecture, but it does something more because it’s just not the kind of space that you, the people are used to experiencing.”
The centre opened on 26 November 2004 with a huge celebration that lasted an entire weekend.
It saw the new arts centre come to life with performances from Michael Ball, Charlotte Church, and Only Men Aloud!
“When the building actually was opened and people came in, the response was unbelievably positive,” said Mr Adams.
Over the years, the Wales Millennium Centre has seen plenty of world-class acts take to the boards within its several theatre spaces.
Most recently, it was home to the hit musical, Wicked, and has also hosted theatre performances, hit comedians, and even rock stars at the stage doors.
“No West End theatre boasts what we have here,” said famed composer Andrew Lloyd Webber about the venue.
“There’s nowhere in London that comes close to this facility.”
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