Keep Repair Add

The operation of theaters has changed significantly over recent decades. Audience habits of listening and viewing have evolved: theaters have “lifted the fourth wall,” repeatedly moved away from the central perspective of the proscenium stage, and created immersive spaces. Outreach formats and community stages have emerged; concerts are held, and paint shops have been converted into studio stages. Theater practitioners like to claim they are opening up “third spaces.” Yet the spatial design of theater buildings has scarcely reflected these developments — unlike the evolution of libraries. Why is that? And how could this be changed?

Experts from politics and culture are deeply concerned with this complex of issues, but there is hardly any open or public discourse about it. Instead, cities across the country are committing to financially ambitious renovation projects in order to preserve or restore the status quo ante in many theater and orchestra buildings in need of repair. If renovations prove impossible or fail, entirely new buildings are quickly demanded and planned.

But what would a genuine transformation of existing structures look like? Is there a third path beyond the polarity of renovation versus new construction? What conditions would be necessary for this? How would feasibility studies, project briefs, and preliminary assessments need to be designed? How could users be integrated into the building process? And what would a correspondingly sustainable process of continuous development look like — extending even beyond construction phases 9 and 10?

These questions are the focus of the initiative Reconstructing cultures and the transformation of theatre construction, a collaboration between Kampnagel International Culture Factory, cultural experts, the German Architecture Museum (DAM), the International Theatre Institute, the German Stage Association, the Schader Foundation, the DFG project Theater Space at HTWK Leipzig, Urban Design at HCU Hamburg, TheaPro, and other experts.

The framework is a two-year journey with stops in Hamburg, Dresden, Nuremberg, Munich, Mannheim, Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Darmstadt, where selected construction projects will be examined on site.