Berlin-based architecture photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu has captured the first images of an elegant new Shanghai theatre designed by the studios of Thomas Heatherwick and Norman Foster with a kinetic moving facade.

The flexible arts and cultural venue is the focal point of the Bund Finance Centre; a new 420,000sq m (4.5 million sq ft) mixed-use destination Foster+Partners and Heatherwick Studio have designed for the city.

According to the design team, the cultural centre is inspired by the open stages of traditional Chinese theatres. The new images demonstrate how the building’s bronze-finned moving veil adapts to the changing use within – revealing, when required, a stage on the balcony and windows looking out towards the district of Pudong.

A timelapse video, also released by Ghinitoiu, shows the dramatic effect achieved by this moving curtain, which is formed by overlapping layers of bronze tubes.

The Bund Financial Centre is being created at the end of Shanghai’s famous waterfront street The Bund.

Heatherwick and Foster have designed two 180m (590ft) landmark towers to mark the south of the site. Other buildings – including offices, restaurants, shops and a boutique hotel – will be staggered in height and relate in scale and rhythm to the grand area’s nineteenth-century landmarks.