The Appearance of the New Theatre in Ljubljana Could Influence People from throughout the World
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.
The exhibition with the name Theatre Architecture: Visions and Possibilities is on display as of today on 52 exhibition panels at the Ljubljana City Hall. In contrast to the Internet version, it is supplemented by models of the student projects as well as an extensive catalogue containing, apart from the projects, introductory texts by invited specialists and academics from various schools of architecture. The exhibition in Ljubljana will be open up until the 6th of December and serves as the culmination of the international workshop of the same name which took place in the summer semester of the year 2009 as part of the multi-annual international, extensive project TACE - Theatre Architecture in Central Europe.
These members of the youngest generation of architects were supported in their far from easy tasks by academics from the participating schools of architecture: Péter Klobusovszki (Budapest University of Technology and Economics), the Brno architect Jakub Kynčl along with his colleagues Vítězslav Nový and Jan Sochor (Brno University of Technology), Ksenia Piątkowska (Gdansk University of Technology), Jacek Rybarkiewicz (The Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice), Professor Jiří Suchomel (Technical University of Liberec), Marek Teska (Czech Technical University, Prague), Imro Vaško (Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava) and Marusa Zorec (University of Ljubljana). The Czech Republic was represented by designs from twenty students of the Faculty of Architecture of Czech Technical University in Prague, the Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology and the Faculty of Art and Architecture of the Technical University of Liberec.
The beginnings of the workshop in terms of the concept were prepared by the acclaimed Slovenian architect and faculty member at the Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture Vojteh Ravnikar. A parcel of land in the actual centre of the city, which had been the subject of considerations by architects and urban planners for several decades, was chosen for the new theatre in cooperation with the city government and the Slovenian Theatre Museum in Ljubljana. It consists of an empty internal block not far from Kongresni trg Square which had been prepared for construction at the beginning of the 1940s by the renowned Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik. Plečnik made his indelible mark on several other locales within Ljubljana. Apart from a range of realized buildings, he was also the author of a number of public spaces, thus contributing to the creation of the modern urban planning of the city. When designing the new theatre, students had to come to terms with his legacy as well, as the chosen plot of land is situated at the end of Plečnik's demarcated city axis of Emonska and Vegova streets.
The opening of the exhibition in Ljubljana is part of the international symposium of Art with Experimental Space which also takes place in the Slovenian capital on the 26th and 27th of November as part of the TACE project.
