Carlos Ott, a Uruguayan-Canadian architect, won an international competition of 756 entries in November 1983. The article says the jury mistakenly thought the design was by Richard Meier. Construction began with the demolition of the Gare de la Bastille. François Mitterrand inaugurated the building on July 13, 1989, and the first opera performance, Berlioz's Les Troyens, came on March 17, 1990. The final cost was 2.8 billion French francs.
The auditorium is an arena with two large rear balconies and no boxes, so every seat is of the same type. The article gives conflicting seat counts: 2,745 in the infobox, 2,723 in the introduction and 2,703 in the later description. The orchestra pit floor is an elevator holding up to 130 players.
The facade used 36,000 Burgundy limestone panels, which began falling in 1991. Safety nets went up in 1996, and tiles were replaced with composite material in 2009.
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