Zurich Opera House warehouses are being renovated

Unlike many comparable opera houses around the world, the opera house has no storage facilities in the main building. The Kügeliloo storage building at Binzmühlestrasse 210 in Zurich-Oerlikon, which was built in 1964 and has been owned by the opera house since 2000, is used for this purpose.

According to the notification from the Canton of Zurich, the roof structure of the warehouse building is contaminated with sprayed asbestos and there are also other harmful substances in the building. The asbestos removal is unavoidable because no changes may be made to these components in contact with sprayed asbestos until professional removal has been carried out.

Raising the height of the hall in the Kügeliloo storage building saves the construction of a temporary emergency roof for the asbestos removal and creates the space required to add a level to the existing shelving system. This means that the wooden shelving can be dispensed with and the overall storage capacity can be doubled. This means that the rented storage space is no longer required.

This building project was developed by Meletta Strebel Architekten AG, Zurich, who were selected in summer 2015 in a planning selection process carried out by the Canton of Zurich's Building Department.