Press Releases

Al Hassan Electricals to light up the Royal Opera House Muscat (04 August 2010)

The Commercial Lighting Division of Al Hassan Electricals Co. LLC (AHE), part of multi-million dollar Al Hassan Group, has recently secured the Landscape Lighting order for the prestigious Royal Opera House Muscat Project.

The Royal Opera House Muscat is a visionary project initiated by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. It will bring together multiple strands of creativity and innovation in both architectural form and structural design. This unique venue can be formatted as a 1,100-seat concert hall for musical performances or reduced in seating capacity for dramatic and operatic productions. The opera house will be a cultural landmark in the entire GCC as this will be the first one in the region and is slated to be a big touristic attraction in coming years.

The Landscape Lighting order will require AHE to supply around 800 Nos. of ground up lights from its internationally renowned principal WE-EF Germany which will lit up the entire landscape. Earlier in March, AHE has also secured the Front of House Illumination order with Down Lighters from another well known principal ERCO Germany.

The architecture of the Royal Opera House is sympathetic to the grand style of modern Omani public buildings. It uses traditional forms of colonnades, terraces and sculptural tower forms, and is finished in locally-sourced light coloured stone and complementary stucco. One of the distinctive features of the project is that the concert hall’s shell is a mobile structure that can be detached to allow an adjustable proscenium to drop into place to create a traditional theatre format. The building design has evolved with these large moving structures to create a unique adaptable volume, which gives the venue unparalleled natural acoustic potential.

The eight hectare site is being developed as the start of a new urban quarter with a formal landscaped park, a cultural souq with museums, retail and coffee shops, and a village square. Construction commenced on the superstructure in April 2007, and the project is scheduled to open in early 2011.

The specialized lighting division of AHE provides industrial and project lighting solutions. Some of its recent projects include The Wave Muscat, Qurum City Centre, National Bank of Abu Dhabi Head Office, New Digital TV Studio Complex.

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