The Royal Opera House project has succeeded in preserving the 140 year old theatre whilst redeveloping its backstage facilities enabling it to continue as the home of the nation's premier opera and ballet companies in the next century. The old foyers and auditorium are now refurbished and airconditioned. The stage and flytower have been rebuilt and enlarged to improve sightlines and simplify scenery handling. New dressing rooms and rehearsal facilities have been constructed for the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet together, with new workshops and offices to consolidate the theatre's operations on one site. Public foyer spaces are largely extended, including the reconstruction of the old Floral Hall as the principal foyer. A second smaller auditorium and the new ballet studios afford greater opportunity for both companies to present smaller scale and experimental works. The rebuilt theatre completes the Covent Garden Market Square, with an arcade of shops lining two sides of the square as originally planned. Further shops now line the two principal street frontages of the site leading into the square and the Opera House is linked to the square, as earlier theatres on the site have been, with a second entrance at the corner of the arcade. Dixon Jones BDP