Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Behind the Curtain of a Customizable Theater
Wired: "The Dallas Arts District Theater was a magnificent piece of crap. Affectionately dubbed the Shed, the junky, corrugated-steel construction looked more warehouse than Koolhaus, but it was basic enough that wild-eyed visionaries would routinely rip out and rearrange seats to fit whatever the current show demanded. Then, in 2005, the Shed was torn down."
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7 comments:
This is so cool. I have never heard of a theater that has a backstage underneath. It's really interesting how they have really utilized the building to get as many different configurations as possible. Also giving the possibility of using Dallas as a natural backdrop sounds gorgeous. It sounds like the people of Dallas should be pleased with the successor of the Shed.
I'm curious about the jump in thought required for a designer to go from the standard proscenium limitations to something as radically flexible as this. This sounds like a triumph in theatre design in Dallas, but it's also important to analyze potential issues associated with creating this flexibility. They say that it will only take 15 minutes to change the configuration, but how many people are needed? What's the maintenance associated with such sophisticated facilities? It feels like no matter how amazing a theatre is, there is always some flaws in the design that need to be addressed, usually because people are trying to use it beyond its original purpose which is a great thing for artists/designers to explore.
Wow. This sounds amazing. It makes me wish we had classes which combined drama people and architecture people to talk about how to build theater's of the future. We talk so much about building a 'green' theater through recycling, but we need to think more about a space which can be multipurpose.
I feel like this article barely skimmed the surface of explaining the potentials of this building. Of what it did talk about though, the pivoting panels are the most architecturally interesting to me, because it changes the areas designated as outside/inside. For being as resourceful and modern as it is, I feel that it has some unnecessary embellishments, such as the terrace. That space could potentially be used for other purposes, more relavant to the operation of the space.
this is amazing the way that this works. this space is so versatile it is so amazing. and the way you can just change the space the way that you wont to. i would love to see this space in real life. and also in 15 mins you can the way that the theater is set up that is so fast in some theaters it takes at lest 15 mins to take a row of seats. the engineering that went into this space is amazing and thought that went in to it. it is great that the architect thought so much about the theater and how it would be used.
Performances like this where more than just the traditional theatre setting is applied always seem to have a greater individual impact on the audience with more than the traditional two senses tied to the memory of the performance. I think that with this type of technology, more people would experience "life changing" performances more often than do now. Add more senses: make it more memorable and real.
This place sounds like a terrific architectural design, putting a truly innovative spin on the basic theatre layout. I am left to wonder though about the same thing I'm always wondering about new theatres: does it actually work? It's so common to see ridiculous things in new theatres that seem brilliant to architects, but which nobody with practical theatre experience looks at.I sure hope this place is functional on top of all of it's epicness. I think creative approaches to theatre spaces are going to become more and more common as a way to increase attention and emphasis on theatre itself.
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