The £70m Sage Gateshead music centre will open on the Tyne this evening (17 December).

Designed by Lord Foster and inspired by Vienna’s Musikverein, the glass and steel building was part financed by a £47.3m Arts Council lottery grant – the largest to be awarded outside of London.

The centre will be home to the Northern Sinfonia while the largest of the three concert halls has a seated capacity of 1,700 people.

The Sage Gateshead continues the regeneration of the Tyneside area which began with Sir Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North and the construction of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, which is situated near to the new centre.

Residential space and a business park occupy adjacent space to the centre, while the park is expected to employ 7,000 people within the next decade. Details: www.thesagegateshead.org