Decision on opera house design

Zaha Hadid has been commissioned to design the proposed Cardiff Bay Opera House after an embarrassing delay by the opera house trustees, writes Jonathan Glancey.

Ms Hadid won a competition to design the £48m future home of the Welsh National Opera last autumn. However, local media and members of the Cardiff Bay Business Forum took against Ms Hadid, whose fashionable work is at the leading edge of the British avant-garde.

It was widely rumoured that the building would be offered to either Sir Norman Foster or Manfredi Nicoletti, a Roman architect whose "glass wave" design was favoured by the business community. The opera house trustees, chaired by Lord Crickhowell, looked afresh at Nicoletti's entry and a new scheme by Sir Norman Foster & Partners. But without substantial funds from the Millennium Fund, Ms Hadid's design may yet be thwarted.