MAD has designed several cultural buildings, including

an artificial island of art caves, an icicle-shaped wood sculpture museum also in Harbin and Chicago's proposed George Lucas Museum. Curved surfaces are a recurring theme through them all, picking up Ma's ambition for a new style of architecture, referencing the landscapes of traditional Chinese paintings.

The smooth surfaces of the opera house's exterior continue inside, where a

large entrance lobby

features arched windows

At one end, a large block of Manchurian Ash wood encloses the grand theatre, with balconies and staircases wrapping around the outside. MAD describes is as "emulating a wooden block that has been gently eroded away".

and a latticed ceiling that is located beneath the sculptural glass roof.