National Theatre of Bahrain, Performing arts center near Bahrain National Museum, Manama, Bahrain.

The National Theatre of Bahrain is a cubic glass building on Manama's waterfront beside the Bahrain National Museum, designed by the French firm Architecture-Studio. Its stainless-steel roof panels were treated by British company Rimex to give a gold shimmer. Inside are a 1001-seat main auditorium clad in Canadian elmwood and a 150-seat flexible studio theatre.

Plans for a new theatre originated in 2003 to relieve the aging 670-seat Cultural Hall, but were delayed for unknown reasons. In December 2007 the Works and Housing Ministry launched the project, and construction finally ran from June 2011 to November 2012 on the demolished site of the Bahrain Heritage Village, which had been moved to Arad in 2009. It opened on 12 November 2012, costing $50 million.

The main auditorium's 1,001 seats symbolically represent the Thousand and One Arabian Nights, and its Canadian elmwood cladding is meant to evoke the interior of a dhow. The opening ceremony in November 2012 was attended by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who praised Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, the culture minister who first proposed the theatre.

The theatre stands beside an artificial lake on the Manama waterfront, next to the Bahrain National Museum. The foyer's glass walls give an open view of the lagoon, and the main entrance is reached past steel poles fixed in July 2012. The 150-seat studio theatre can be rearranged for conferences or rehearsals using a retractable seating unit and demountable platforms.

The theatre was built on the demolished site of the Bahrain Heritage Village, a 1980s replica of a typical Bahraini village. That village was moved to Arad on Muharraq island in December 2009 to save costs, so no part of it survives in the theatre's design.