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Jack Diamond, the architect behind the Canadian Opera Company's acclaimed new home, is dusting off his tuxedo for an encore. Yesterday morning, he flew to Washington to oversee events this weekend marking the official opening of his latest building, the sparkling new $89-million (U.S.) Sidney Harman Hall, which is already earning applause for its elegant flexibility.

The building on F Street NW, only a couple of blocks from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is part of the long-running renaissance of downtown Washington.

A ribbon-cutting this morning will kick off two days of events at the new home of the city's Shakespeare Theatre Company, whose artistic director is Michael Kahn. On Oct. 1, le tout Washington (or, at least those in the city who care about culture) will turn out for a glitzy gala that instantly sold out despite a starting price of $5,000 (U.S.) per ticket. (That same day, Diamond will be feted by both the Canadian and British Ambassadors.) U.S. President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush are the honorary chairs of the event, which will feature performances by the ballet dancers Nina Ananiashvili and Julio Bocca, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, actress Patti LuPone, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and members of the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

The variety of acts will hint at the fact that the new 775-seat space has been designed for maximum physical and acoustical flexibility, allowing for a thrust stage, an arena configuration, or a traditional proscenium stage.

"Normally I'm really not one for flexible halls," Diamond admitted this week on the phone from Toronto. "Looking at the halls that supposedly are flexible, they have these gigantic curtains that are pulled across, and panels that are movable. The architecture of the room changes. So if it's good for one thing, it's not for another."

Diamond, however, has designed the Harman theatre in a rectilinear shoebox shape and adorned it with elements that easily appear or retract, including a proscenium arch that folds up like a piece of scenery and disappears into the fly space above the stage. The differing acoustical demands are handled by a series of heavy black curtains, manipulated with a touch of a button, that are hidden behind slatted wooden walls.

Canadians who wander down to Washington may find an echo or two of his Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Like the Toronto opera palace, the new Sidney Harman Hall, named after a donor who contributed almost $20-million, features a three-storey glass wall that allows those on the street to observe audiences gathering in the lobby, and vice versa. The wall - a massive bay window, really - projects almost three metres over the eight-metre-wide sidewalk, allowing those on the two upper floors of the lobby to gaze up and down the street.

Diamond said bringing something new to the area meant bumping up against the city's history. "In Washington, you have to deal with L'Enfant," he said, referring to Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the 18th-century Frenchman who laid out the city. "He's seen as absolutely sacred. So it took me two or three tries through the preservation board to project the bay window." But last Monday, during a dinner for the building's donors, he heard nothing but praise. "I think people are quite stunned by it."