Spira Performing Arts Center

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.

The interior is finished in warm wood, with a concert hall wrapped in wood beneath a starry night sky.