Architecture Students Design a New Theatre in Ljubljana
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 18th to the 20th 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 21st century.
The students' task will be to design a new theatre building for the centre of Ljubljana with the main hall designated for both a traditional theatre as well as for a contemporary form of theatre with a capacity for an audience of approximately 500 people. Additional public spaces including an exhibition hall and a café should serve to enrich the social life in the centre of Ljubljana. This type of conceived building is acutely missed in the city centre at present.
The students will take a tour of Ljubljana as well as the building site for the theatre project upon the first working meeting of the workshop in March. They will also take part in lectures on the history of Ljubljana theatres (Ivo Svetina), theatre spaces (Prof. Meta Hočevar) and contemporary stage practice (Tomaž Toporišič, Janez Janša, Barbara Novakovič). The first working designs and models should also be created including their presentations and consequent discussion. Work in groups will be supervised by lecturers from particular university faculties.
The students will continue to work on their tasks upon their returns home, as either part of their semester work or even as the subject of their dissertations. At the beginning of June the three best projects will be chosen from each faculty, which will be consequently exhibited in Ljubljana in October 2009 as an accompanying event of the symposium on experimental theatre space, an additional event from the TACE project.
The prominent Slovenian architect Vojteh Ravnikar has undertaken supervision of the entire event. Apart from his studio at the Faculty of Architecture of Ljubljana University, there will be additional participation from the studio of Vladimír Soukenka at the Czech Technical University in Prague, Jiří Suchomel at the Technical University of Liberec and Jiří Knesl and Jakub Kynčl at the Brno University of Technology. Additional participation will come from the studio of Imro Vaško at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Ksenia Piątkowska at the Gdańsk University of Technology, Jacek Rybarkiewicz at the Department of Urban and Spatial Planning of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice and Péter Klobusovszki at the Department of Public Building Design of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
The workshop “Theatre Architecture, Visions and Possibilities” is being carried out as part of the several year project TACE – Theatre Architecture in Central Europe supported by a grant from a programme of the European Union, Culture 2000. The project was prepared by the Theatre Institute of the Arts Institute, while the organiser of the project is the Prague National Theatre with co-organisers being theatre institutes in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The aim of the project is a detailed mapping out of theatre architecture in Central Europe, with its history and contemporary situation being presented through several events.
Over the course of the year 2009 the public will have the opportunity to view A Museum of Theatre Architecture on the Internet, a database of theatre architecture which will serve individuals interested in theatre architecture (historians, students, the general public), as well as foreign and guest theatre enthusiasts who will provide information regarding the technical furnishings of guest theatres. Additionally over that same year, in September of 2009, the already-mentioned Conference on Experimental Theatre Space will take place in Ljubljana. This will include, apart from presentations of the results of the workshop “Theatre Architecture, Visions and Possibilities”, the release of a publication on Experimental Theatre Space in the second half of the 20th century which will collect contributions from the conference as well as more general considerations on this theme. The history of theatre architecture in Central Europe will also be the focus of a large travelling exhibition beginning in January 2010 in Prague with the architect Igor Kovačević serving as curator, as well as an impressive publication in English. Apart from the workshop “Theatre Architecture, Visions and Possibilities”, there will also be a workshop in the summer semester of 2010 dedicated to monument care and reconstruction of theatre buildings.
