Is the National Theatre in Prague ‘just’ a display case for domestic culture, or is it also a symbol of Czech architecture? And how has the national awareness of Poles, Hungarians, Slovenians, Slovaks, and Russians been reflected in the past two centuries in their main theatre buildings? These and other questions are raised by the major exhibition project ‘Beyond Everydayness’, which will be welcomed this year and next year in metropolises throughout Europe and will present around seventy different theatre buildings. The exhibition has been created as part of the multi-year project TACE (Theatre Architecture in Central Europe) and its curator is the architect Igor Kovačevič and his team.

TACE workshop & exhibition in Ljubljana brought up a topic for a public discussion at Slovene Ministry of Culture

Divje misli (Wild Thoughts) is a series of discussions organised by the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia, with an aim of public intervention into the space of reflection on culture.

The discussion held on December the 3^rd 2009 dealt with the question: Is Ljubljana the city in which a new theatre, a theatre for the 21st century, could be built?

The hyper-modern, abstract as well as traditional, designs for a new theatre in Ljubljana, Slovenia, created by students from schools of five European countries, are from the 25th of November available for viewing here. More than 50 designs by architecture students from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia demonstrate various approaches to making use of a vacant lot in the historical core of the capital of Slovenia while at the same time creating a space suitable for modern theatre operations. Visitors to the web pages also have the opportunity to vote on the most successful design as well as comment or evaluate particular projects. Apart from the public parts of the competition, various experts (architects, academics and art historians) will be voting via Internet. The public voting on the web pages will come to a close on the 10th of January 2010.

Experimental theatre and theatre in a non-traditional space  in the second half of the 20th century will be the theme of an international symposium which will take place on the 26th and 27th of November in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Prominent specialists from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic will be presenting papers dedicated to experimental theatre as both an artistic discipline and a social phenomenon within the context of post-war developments in Central Europe.

The speakers are: Judit Csanádi (Hungary), Oleg Dlouhý (Slovakia), Anna Grusková (Slovakia), Primož Jesenko (Slovenia), Andreja Kopač (Slovenia), Tatjana Lazorčáková (Czech Republic), Barbara Novakovič (Slovenia), Joanna Ostrowska (Poland), Ivo Svetina (Slovenia), Borbála Szalay (Hungary), Juraj Šebesta (Slovakia), Pavel Štorek (Czech Republic), Tomaž Toporišič (Slovenija), Julius Tyszka (Poland), Dragan Živadinov (Slovenia), Tomáš Žižka (Czech Republic).

An exhibition of student designs for "The new theatre for the 21st Century" at the selected location in Ljubljana was opened at the City Hall of Ljubljana on the 25th of November and will close on the 6th of December.

A catalogue presenting all student projects as well as the introductory texts of Slovene experts and all the tutors is available at the National Theatre Museum of Slovenia. 

The designs have been digitalised for your evalutaion - just click at STUDENT COMPETITION! 

In October of this year a symposium on experimental theatre space in the second half of the 20^th century will take place in Ljubljana as part of the framework of the TACE project. We had the pleasure of carrying out an interview with its main organiser, the Director of the Slovenian Theatre Museum, Ivo Svetina where we discussed both experimental theatre space and the workshop “Theatre Architecture - Visions and Possibilities”, the first part of which occurred in Ljubljana in March of this year.

Jiří Hilmera, art historian and leading Czech specialist on theatre architecture and the history of scenography, died on the 27th of April 2009 while still fully involved in his work. Hilmera also served as the head of the TACE expert team as of the year 2008 for whom his death will be a truly significant loss.

What will theatre look like in the 21^st century? What role should it have in contemporary society? How should it be incorporated into the existing organism of the city or town? These are some of the questions whose answers were sought out for by architecture students from five Central European countries during the workshop “Theatre Architecture, Visions and Possibilities” which took place from the 18^th to the 20^th of March 2009 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Thanks to a project of the National Theatre in Prague, TACE – Theatre Architecture in Central Europe, 70 students from Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak and Slovenian architecture schools were able to participate as well. They had a difficult task to solve, that being the design for a new theatre in Ljubljana which would fit suitably into the historical centre of the city and at the same time meet all the requirements for modern theatre operations.

Students from five European countries will, thanks to the project TACE (Theatre Architecture in Central Europe), have the opportunity to design a new theatre building in the centre of Ljubljana. This will take place as part of the workshop “Theatre Architecture, Visions and Possibilities”, the first stage of which will be carried out from the 18^th to the 20^th of March 2009 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 67 students from Bratislava, Brno, Budapest, Gdańsk, Gliwice, Liberec, Ljubljana and Prague will take part in the workshop. The goal will be the preparation of a project over the course of the summer semester for a modern theatre for the 21^st century.

10th October 2008

Part of a symposium ART IN EXPERIMENTAL, INDUSTRIAL AND NON-TRADITIONAL SPACE 

The thematic section “Experimental Theatre Space” was a busy part of the symposium “Art in Experimental, Industrial and Non-traditional Space” which took place in the beginning of October. Most of the contributions were related to non-traditional space of theatre activities and also to influences of these innovative conceptions on the traditional theatre scene in the past and in the present.