The Academi is
one of a group of arts organisations which will have permanent homes
in the new Wales Millennium Centre currently under construction in Cardiff
Bay. Along with Welsh National Opera, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, Diversions
Dance Company, the Welsh Amateur Music Information Centre, Hijinx Theatre
Company, The Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies, and the
Touch Trust the Academi will be housed in the Percy Thomas Partnership's
powerful construction situated next to the new Assembly building and
dominating the Cardiff Bay Waterfront.

The building will evoke images of the Welsh landscape and of cultural
and working traditions of Wales. It will be built of Welsh materials
and will feature recycled slate blocks from the quarries of North Wales;
special steel from Gwent, and native hardwoods from Mid Wales. The building
will reflect the rock strata of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast and columns
supporting the internal galleries will take the form of tree ferns which
thrived in the area hundreds of millions of years ago and which are
now found as fossils in the coal measures.
Roof gardens will reflect the windswept tress and grasses of the Cardigan
coast. The architectural glass department of Swansea Institute is working
with designers to insert 'fissures' of glass into the slate block walls
of the Centre.

A major feature
of the building will be a monumental inscription over the main entrance
which will echo common practice in Roman architecture found in Wales.
The inscription will emphasise and reflect the cultural aspirations
of Wales. The text has been developed by poet Gwyneth Lewis using ideas
presented by the Academi run competition to find a suitable inscription.
(more details)
Inside, the Wales Millennium Centre will have theatre, opera, exhibition
and performance spaces along with a variety of bars, restaurants and
meeting spaces. In addition to literary performances the Centre will
present West End Musicals, international opera, dance, youth activities
as well as operating as a centre for artistic research and education.
The Wales Millennium Centre is a £70.6m project which will create
work for over 350 - including 250 new jobs. Construction of architect
Jonathan Adam's masterwork began in the spring of 1999 with completion
expected by the end of 2001. The project is funded by the Millennium
Commission, The Arts Council of Wales Lottery Fund, the public and private
sectors along with European sources.