The center looks like a butterfly from above.

The Shanghai "Golden Concert Hall."

　　People always make wishes for the coming new year and so does the city.

　　While counting all the city's wishes is difficult, officials have confirmed that Shanghai Oriental Art Center will open on New Year's Eve, giving residents the gift of music.

　　Li Zhongyong, vice director of the center's construction project said: "We built the center so that people can be in touch with music."

　　The crystal lookalike center features 2,000 symphony halls, 1,100 medium-sized concert halls, and 300 small concert stages. The opulent center is on Century Avenue and is surrounded by trees and lush grass.

　　Once completed it will be difficult for people to understand the difficulties engineers faced during its construction.

　　Li and his crew have spent more than two years on the project, solving many problems along the way to ensure the quality and popularity of the concert center.

　　The technology involved for creating concert halls ideal for sound proved to be the most complicated and a laborious task.

　　To achieve the best acoustics for each hall, designs were adjusted again and again to find the best location for each one. The project team assessed various styles of music including Chinese folk, Western classical and Chinese operas using computers.

　　To ensure the quality of each music hall, musicians and architects were invited to make suggestions after listening to the simulated sound.

　　Even now, so close to opening night, project engineers still tinker to get the acoustics just right.

　　"We have too little experience in building such a huge modern concert center, but things will be better and better as we join more challenging projects in future," said one of the project engineers.

　　Aside from fine-tuning the center's acoustics, the building's appearance, function and security were considered as carefully as a student prepares for college entrance exams.

　　From the exterior, visitors will marvel at the glass frame that gleams in the sunshine. It took a long time for the team to figure out how to create the building's butterfly shape with glass.

　　Li said both he and his staff are proud of the glass exterior and the center's stages.

　　"The stages are simply fantastic. I believe some of the stages can hold a two-hour ice ballet without any problems," Li said with confidence.

　　The center is also built to withstand possible natural disasters. The flower-shaped roof sheds water quickly, even during heavy rainstorms. After another month of fine-tuning, the new art center will be ready. Let the music be heard.