Zaha Hadid won the competition for the Cardiff Bay Opera House in 1994.
The proposed opera house was intended to provide a permanent home for Welsh National Opera as part of Cardiff Bay’s redevelopment. Hadid’s design was an angular, crystalline structure sometimes nicknamed the “Crystal Necklace.” It became one of her most famous unbuilt projects.
The competition attracted 268 international entries. Although Hadid’s proposal won, critics considered it too radical, and the trust required further design rounds involving Norman Foster + Partners and Manfredi Nicoletti. Hadid’s scheme won again, but the project never advanced to construction.
A common mix-up is 1995, because the Millennium Commission rejected lottery funding in December of that year. The eventual replacement on the site, the Wales Millennium Centre, opened in 2004.