The new Garsington Opera Pavilion at Wormsley, designed by Snell Associates, has won three awards from the RIBA – the RIBA Award, for its architectural excellence; the RIBA South Client of the Year Award; and the RIBA South Building of the Year Award. The awards were presented last night, Wednesday 20 June, at the 2012 RIBA Awards Ceremony at the Railway Museum, Swindon. These awards celebrate the best of UK Architecture. It has also been named one of the RIBA’s 50 best buildings of the year and is therefore a candidate for the Stirling Prize

The 600 seat summer Opera Pavilion, at Wormsley Park, home of the Getty Family, is situated within the lush pastoral country estate, conceived in the English tradition of a pavilion in a grand landscape.

Garsington Opera relocated to Wormsley in 2011 into its new pavilion that has been designed to complement and give unique views onto the outstandingly beautiful surrounding landscape. With its superb acoustics and comfortable seats, it is the perfect setting for opera performances of the very highest quality.

Anthony Whitworth-Jones General Director of Garsington Opera said: We are thrilled that our Opera Pavilion has been honoured in this way and we are delighted that our architect, Robin Snell, has been so successful in the way he has designed a pavilion that, at the same time, is uncompromisingly modern and yet settles so easily into its pastoral surroundings.

The season at Garsington Opera runs until 3 July with Vivaldi’s rarely performed L’Olimpiade, Offenbach’s charming operetta La Périchole and Mozart’s Don Giovanni . www.garsingtonopera.org

 See also National Reviews page