The architects’ brief was to “create something unmistakably Welsh and internationally outstanding”.  We all agreed that they had succeeded.

Opened in November 2004 at a cost of £103 million, the Wales Millennium Centre is located near the waterfront of Cardiff Bay, the former docklands area which has seen massive changes and regeneration in recent years.

Since its opening, the Centre has hosted performances of opera, dance, theatre and musicals, as well as free concerts in the foyer - a welcoming vibrant area with bars, coffee shops and a restaurant.  Almost a third of a million people have already attended more than 250 performances at the Donald Gordon theatre.  The theatre is one of the largest in Europe, holding 1900 spectators, yet feels intimate and has state of the art acoustics.  

Several of our party went immediately after our visit to book tickets for “Guys and Dolls” which was on tour from the West End, as they were so keen to see a performance in this wonderful setting. 

The WMC also houses the Weston Studio, a smaller flexible performance space, and the headquarters of a number of dance, cultural arts and music companies, including Welsh National Opera.

We learnt a great deal about the inspiration for the Centre, its construction and how it operates. The centre was designed by Jonathan Adams, from Cardiff-based architectural practice Percy Thomas Partnership, who said, “The obvious place to look for inspiration for the design of the Wales Millennium Centre, it seemed to me, was the environment, and the cultural and social traditions of our own country.” 

The structure is dominated by a huge roof, clad in steel treated with copper oxide to give it a bronze colour that lights up in sunshine.  Jonathan chose to revive the classical tradition of using carved inscriptions above the entrances to important civic buildings, and this enabled him to pay tribute to the literary tradition in Wales.  So, inscribed above the main entrance, are two lines written by Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis.  The words in Welsh “Creu gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen” mean "Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration".  Equally beautiful, the English line is "In these stones, horizons sing".  The letters form huge windows that flood the bar area on the upper floors with daylight and illuminate the façade at night.  They make the building instantly recognisable locally and increasingly across the UK - helped by numerous appearances in film and television including Torchwood, the spin-off series from Doctor Who, which is set in Cardiff Bay.

The WMC is the first national cultural institution to be built in Wales for over a half century.  Its designers were keen for it to say something to the public about the state of our nation now and about our hopes for the future.  It seems to be fulfilling this wish, having established itself already as both a tourist magnet and architectural icon.