Archinect - News

Henning Larsen unveils design for new Jeddah Opera House in Saudi Arabia

2024-04-23T15:53:00-04:00

Henning Larsen has announced a new cultural project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Danish firm's plans for the new Jeddah Opera House entail a 1,500-seat opera, 750-seat theater, and 150-seat Rehearsal Hall to be constructed at a site that forms the new Opera Quarter and is included as part of the larger Jeddah Central master plan.

In concept, the scheme presents a cluster of buildings along a central spine adhering to the Red Sea shoreline. Glowing geometric volumes display an irregular rhythm created in their facade’s coral stone and wood exteriors and enlivened by Mashrabiyas and Roshans, all of which are vernacular elements and responsive to the Al-Balad area's architectural history and character. The listed square footage of the project is 344,400 (or 32,000 square meters).

Image: Vivid Vision courtesy of Henning Larsen

Louis Becker, the Global Design Principal for Henning Larsen, describes the work: "The tradition of theater grew out of public space and everyday life — the casual...

'Grenfell: in the words of survivors' play comes to New York this spring

2024-03-21T13:36:00-04:00

A new dramatization of the deadly 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy is being staged next month at the St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, after traveling from the National Theatre in London, where it premiered last summer.

Playwright Gillian Slovo’s interviews with survivors are the basis for the play’s verbatim dialog. Directors Phyllida Lloyd and Anthony Simpson-Pike will reprise their roles for the four-week run, beginning an opening night performance on April 13th.

A July review of the first adaptation from The Guardian called it “a masterpiece of forensic fury.” The New York Times’ Alex Marshall wrote about the play's proselytizing effects, framing it as a democratic and justice-driven “call for change.”

The aftermath of the blaze that claimed the lives of 72 people has indeed led to several proactive reforms, including a recent mandate concerning cladding remediation and the appointment of a new building safety regulator. Potential criminal charges stemming from the London Me...

LMN completes overhaul of Buxton Center to connect with history and ecology of Pacific Northwest’s Bainbridge Island

2024-02-13T11:50:00-05:00

LMN Architects has completed an extensive renovation and expansion of the Buxton Center for Bainbridge Performing Arts on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Described by the team as marking “a new era for performers and the arts community in the Pacific Northwest,” the center has been upgraded with a renovated main auditorium and lobby.

Image credit: Lara Swimmer

Visitors to the center are greeted by a new two-story lobby enclosed by a wood and glass curtain wall, responding to the site’s woodland context. Above, a wave-form roof and ceiling plane displays an exposed wood structure, tying the new program spaces together to give the building a clear identity.

Image credit: Lara Swimmer

“The roof and ceiling plane echoes the region’s architectural vernacular and is expressive of the building program,” said LMN Architects principal Mark Tumiski about the scheme. “We took advantage of the scale and tectonic identity of the original structure...

MAD designs Chinese waterfront arts center as a ‘gentle ripple by the lake’

2024-01-04T11:35:00-05:00

MAD Architects has designed a waterfront arts center in China’s Foshan City described as a “gentle ripple by the lake.” When completed in 2029, the Nanhai Art Center will cover an area of 640,000 square feet, housing a grand theater, a museum, and a sports center.

Image credit: MAD Architects

The scheme has been conceived as a “continuous wave of water,” with the three main buildings sitting underneath a floating canopy comprised of a white, translucent ETFE membrane. The resulting blurring of outdoor and indoor spaces seeks to emphasize the prominence of the nearby lake in the scheme, encouraging the local community to embrace the waterfront as a part of the scheme’s cultural function.

Image credit: MAD Architects

“The traditional culture of Nanhai is in the drum beat and boat drift during the dragon festival boat race and in the kung-fu in the lion dance,” MAD founder Ma Yansong about the site’s context. “Watching them, you can feel the dynamic vibrant, and innovative spirit from an...

Snøhetta designs Saudi opera house inspired by traditional Najdi architecture

2023-12-18T11:45:00-05:00

Snøhetta has unveiled its design for an opera house in Diriyah, on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Inspired by the surrounding desert landscape, local cultural heritage, and Najdi building traditions, the Royal Diriyah Opera House forms part of a wider master plan to redevelop the historic area.

Image credit: Binyan

Both the form and materiality of the opera house respond to a vernacular style in the area known as Najdi, which historically saw mud-brick structures closely clustered to create constant shade. Similarly, the proposed scheme comprises a cluster of buildings connected by open-access passages, responding to the need to shade visitors from the sun.

Image credit: Binyan

The concept behind the design was “the idea of earth from the riverbeds, which crack when exposed to the hot sun, is molded by wind and rain, and then finds a new shape as separate forms.” As a result, the cluster of buildings is imagined as rising from the ground to form open passages across the site. ...

Studio Gang to design new home for the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Upstate New York

2023-12-01T12:29:00-05:00

Studio Gang has revealed plans for the new home of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Upstate New York.

Located in the town of Garrison, the 13,850-square-foot performing arts space is set to become the first-ever LEED Platinum theater design in the United States when it is completed.

Nelson Byrd Woltz will provide landscaping for the site, a 98-acre former golf course that was donated to the company in 2020. Anchored by an open-air theater, the design frames the surrounding natural landscape to allow for actors to emerge from the topography.

Image courtesy Studio Gang

A timber-framed shell with wooden columns that supports the proscenium arch is carefully oriented to frame the surrounding Wey-Gat (or “Wind Gate”) for the audience and players. The remaining program calls for the construction of several small pavilions that will house the company's back-of-house operations, theater concessions, and standalone public restrooms. Costs of the project were not available at press ...

Frida Escobedo and Handel's National Black Theatre project tops out in Harlem

2023-10-09T17:24:00-04:00

Frida Escobedo and Handel Architects have shared photos of their newly topped-out National Black Theatre and Ray Harlem mixed-use development in Manhattan.

The project entails a new 27,000-square-foot theater, retail spaces, and a 222-unit residential component strategically located along the historic 125th Street corridor in East Harlem. It is the first scheme in the city to utilize the Visual and Performing Arts bonus included in a comprehensive 2008 rezoning plan, expanding on the late National Black Theatre founder Barbara Ann Teer’s vision for “an artistic ecosystem that uplifts the community,” according to Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. Proponents say its creation is also a catalyst for greater representation in the theater and cultural industries overall.

Image © Brett Tiagwad

Construction will now continue towards the NBT’s expected public opening in 2026. Once complete, the theater will include a 250-seat immersive technology performance space, a 99-seat flexible s...

Lemay completes major redesign of Montreal’s 1950s Théâtre de Verdure

2023-08-29T13:55:00-04:00

Montreal-baed Lemay has completed a redesign of the city’s Théâtre de Verdure. The original 1956 development has been enhanced with what the firm calls a “4-season concept that redefines the relationship between theatre and park, architecture and landscape, and the built and the natural.”

Image credit: Adrien Williams

The redesign sought to make the outdoor theater’s presence felt throughout the adjacent La Fontaine Park, maximizing views of both the stage and surrounding greenspace. Designed to address both visitors and passers-by, the form “invites discovery, both inside and outside the site” with a “new green, modern, and lively public space that offers a vibrant place for lovers of arts and culture to witness unforgettable moments.”

Image credit: Adrien Williams

"Throughout the project, we were keen to reaffirm the theatre's heritage identity, and we took care to develop new interventions compatible with the memory of the site," explained Marie-Ève Parent, Associate and Discipline...

andblack design studio creates a modular, prefabricated black box theater with multifunctional use

2023-06-22T17:37:00-04:00

Kanika and Jwalant Mahadevwala, architects and founding partners of andblack design studio, have created a multifunctional black box theater design that uses parametric models to "allow customization of several variables to achieve the specified volume." Their design prototype, Darwin Bucky, is a prefabricated kit of parts made of wood, aluminum, steel, and glass.

Designed for Abhay Mangaldas, founder of India-based startup Darwin, the lightweight modular panel design is a flat-pack system that emphasizes versatile on-site assembly.

Darwin Bucky assembly. Image © Vinay Panjwani.

According to the architects, Darwin Bucky is a "black box that can be used as an exhibition gallery, a town hall, an expo center, a performance arena, or even serve as a bar or a nightclub. It is designed to be placed in public gardens, exhibition grounds, or even in a city center."

Aerial view of Darwin Bucky site. Image © Vinay Panjwani.

Without the need for a ...

Sou Fujimoto's Ishinomaki Cultural Center offers a poetic space to a community looking to heal and remember

2023-06-22T14:48:00-04:00

Sou Fujimoto Architects has shared photos of the firm’s recent Maruhon MakiArt Terrace design in Ishinomaki, Japan.

The project sought to rebuild an important piece of the region’s cultural infrastructure that was destroyed by the devastating earthquake and tsunami, which claimed the lives of more than 3,000 local residents there on March 11th, 2011.

Image: © Masaki Iwata and Sou Fujimoto Architects

Responding to a brief that called for a revitalizing centerpiece for the city of 147,000, the design team created a 140,000-square-foot building that plays host to two 1,254- and 300-seat theaters, exhibitions areas, a public gallery, and learning spaces for a variety of different users.

Image: © Masaki Iwata and Sou Fujimoto Architects

A poetic linear arrangement is created as repeated gable ends combine with alternating “chimney-like” rectangular forms connected by a 170-meter (557-foot) long entrance lobby along the south orientation.

...

Mario Botta details La Scala makeover for the NYT

2023-05-02T19:33:00-04:00

The work has been about creating a dialogue between the 18th century and modernity. This theater was born as a space to create dreams, illusions, adventures. It’s still a place of collective imagination. But to effectively make it work today, it needed to be much more flexible and capable than what existed in the 1700s. It had run out of space to perform effectively. We’ve created a series of elements designed to make the theater function for the 2000s.

The Swiss architect began his two-phase restoration in January 2002. It has been the subject of controversy since that time, owing to its scale and derivation from the city council tender approvals process. The project highlights the delicate line between preservation and the ambits of a figure such as Botta, whose deference to the past has always been expressed in materials such as terra cotta and Botticino marble.

To that score, Botta says his approach to design has evolved to be a sort of commentary on the "confrontation between times [...] A collage of different language," adding we’ve "lost the capacity to express the true value of architecture."

"I find that architecture is always a sacred act, because it transforms nature and it represents our entire world," he states at the end of the NYT interview. "The architecture of sacred spaces is very close to the architecture of theaters or museums. You’re trying to create a type of value and strength. You’re attempting to embody a ...

Darin Johnstone Architects creates ‘ephemeral experience’ in Pasadena auditorium renovation

2023-04-07T11:10:00-04:00

Los Angeles-based Darin Johnstone Architects has offered an inside look at their recently-completed renovation of the Ahmanson Auditorium. Located on the ArtCenter College of Design’s Hillside campus in Pasadena, the 3,300-square-foot auditorium saw upgrades to its lobby, main theater, and projection room.

Image credit: Joshua White

Upon entering the venue, the upgraded lobby deploys simple design elements such as an historic existing feature steel stair and an original Keith Haring mural to “create a threshold” from the wider campus. Elsewhere, the 214-seat auditorium has been upgraded to achieve full ADA accessibility while sound and light components have been used as a catalyst to create a contemporary atmosphere.

Image credit: Joshua White

The side walls of the auditorium are lined with over five thousand color gradient sound-absorbing “dots.” The “dot walls” transition from orange to black as one moves through the auditorium, co...

Diller Scofidio + Renfro issues update on historic Frank Lloyd Wright theater revitalization in Dallas

2022-12-12T18:50:00-05:00

Diller Scofidio + Renfro has shared new project details and a flythrough animation for their planned revitalization of the 63-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas.

The project’s scope revolves around a “faithful reinterpretation of Wright’s original design intent” that calls for the removal of several decades worth of accumulated additions; creation of a new “theater arts complex” outside that includes a new performance venue, two pavilions, and a 100-seat black box theater; demolition of the existing Heldt Building; and further development of the William B. Dean Park with an emphasis on “stitching” the site with the popular nearby Katy Trail and Turtle Creek attractions.

Image courtesy Diller Scofidio + Renfro

According to a press release, the final plans will be submitted to the city no later than December 31st of this year. Chicago-based preservation specialists Harboe Architects is also involved with the planning team, helping to restore the so...

Illinois grants $26 million to performing arts revitalization project in Chicago led by actor Harry Lennix

2022-05-02T17:53:00-04:00

Harry Lennix’s Lillian Marcie Center for the Performing Arts, a project located at 4343 S. Cottage Grove Ave. on Chicago’s South Side and designed to aid in the renaissance of Bronzeville, will receive capital funding from the State of Illinois to the tune of $26 million, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Tuesday.

The Chicago-born actor describes the project as “the Black version of the Lincoln Center.” It will house a 350-seat multi-level auditorium, flexible performance stage, a second smaller 100-seat theater, and related areas, such as rehearsal spaces, dressing rooms, offices, and outdoor gathering spaces. The building also features a museum dedicated to Black contributions to the performing arts. The center will occupy a former warehouse, and once revitalized, will be the home of the Congo Square Theatre Company. Chicago-based firm Nia Architects is carrying out the design.

Lennix hopes the project will draw tourists to the historic Bronzeville neighborhood. The new facility is expected to cost approximately $80 million and is scheduled for completion in the summer or fall of 2024.

Trahan Architects to design a new performing arts center for the Asian American Resource Center in Austin

2022-03-18T19:56:00-04:00

The Asian American Resource Center (AARC) of Austin, Texas is getting an artistic new addition thanks to a design from Trahan Architects.

The New York and New Orleans-based firm was selected to envision a new performing arts space for the center, which will come in the form of two dueling 200- and 400-seat theaters housed within a singular structure on the AARC’s campus in northeast Austin.

Trahan’s design places the arts space next to the existing AARC facility on a 15-acre site at the nexus of Cameron Road and Clear Creek Drive.

Site plan of the planned Performing Arts Center at the Asian American Resource Center. Image courtesy the City of Austin

“[We] feel privileged to be working on such an important cultural project which will enrich the lives of the Asian American community members in Austin and its surrounding areas,” Managing Principal Kevin Thomas said in a statement. “The firm is well-positioned to do this meaningful work by approaching the design to ensure diverse commun...

Turn like a wheel inside a wheel: Steinmetz Hall is almost ready to move and groove in Orlando

2022-01-11T18:49:00-05:00

Future generations of concertgoers in the Orlando area will want a ticket to commemorate the moment the city’s dynamic new $612 million performance venue makes its theatrical debut at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts this Friday.

Designed by former UCLA faculty member Barton Myers, Steinmetz Hall is a mechanical wonder made even more remarkable by the way its form can be shifted to adapt to one of the building’s myriad uses. The concert hall has a maximum seating capacity of 1,650 and consists of multiple layouts that can be applied to a variety of individual types of musical and artistic performances.

Photo courtesy Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

With help from Gala Systems, Myers created a series of interchangeable components that can be rearranged seamlessly according to need. A retractable acoustic shell is moved in and out of place thanks to 65 feet of track that facilitates the theater’s biggest area of public use as a concert hall. Additional space...

O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects founders honored with RIAI Gold Medal for Belfast's Lyric Theatre

2021-12-15T19:26:00-05:00

Following news this morning about the topping out of one of the firm’s highest-profile projects in recent memory, Dublin-based O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects has been awarded the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland’s Gold Medal for their 2012 Lyric Theatre project in Belfast.

Featuring a brilliant CLT auditorium, the building is sited on a slope along the River Lagan and is defined by a distinctive irregular shape and time-tested materials that respond to the area's contrasting brick streetscape and lush green parkland which surrounds the 54,100-square-foot structure on either side.

The Lyric Theatre by O Donnell + Tuomey. Photo: Dennis Gilbert

The RIAI’s Peter Hynes commended the theater as a “deeply considered and exquisitely crafted building which responds to and engages with its physical and cultural contexts and enriches both,” adding that “it combines the welcome of arrival with the drama of movement and the surprise of discovery on many levels. It integrates public funct...

Glass box theater? Designers like Es Devlin are making the Fourth Wall out of something new

2021-10-21T17:59:00-04:00

Even before Covid-19, many ambitious productions had been taking place not in the three-sided black boxes that defined the experimental zest and emerging punk of the late 1970s, or […] theater-in-the-round pioneered in ancient Greece and Rome, but in elaborately engineered glass cubes that evoke the International Style’s high Modernism and the minimalist penthouses of the contemporary metropolis. There would not seem to be a more flagrant violation of dramatic immediacy.

Glass cube sets from Miriam Buether, artist Todd Knope, and Expo 2020 Dubai British Pavillion designer Es Devlin have been popular among directors like Sam Mendes. One of Devlin's previous designs was based on a temporary Rachel Whitehead installation in East London from 1993. The artist's work will take center stage once again with the reopening of Mendes' The Lehman Trilogy, which plays at New York's Nederlander Theater until January 2nd.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Lehman Trilogy on Broadway (@lehmantrilogybway)

“There’s a message embedded in a single room,” the three-time Olivier Award winner told the Times, “that architecture itself is the vessel through which history — whether intimate or monumental — is enacted. Glass helps you make that message explicit: A room is more than just a passive container. It remembers life.”

A Las Vegas theater company knows the value of having an interior architect on board (and they're hiring one right now)

2021-08-07T09:00:00-04:00

Having a background as an architect offers a specific level of expertise that can be used outside of traditional employment formats. Archinect has been connecting with architects and design professionals from various backgrounds since 1997.

Our industry-leading job board publishes approximately 150 new opportunities every week. Employment offerings from numerous locations and thousands of firms, organizations, creative companies, and institutions offer a mix of career opportunities for architects and design professionals from a variety of backgrounds and experiences.

Beyond traditional employment openings from small, medium, and large firms, Archinect Jobs also showcases a selection of unique job opportunities for architects.

Last week, our editorial team highlighted an exciting job opening to work as a Treehouse Designer. This week, renowned American theater company Spiegelworld is searching for an Interior Architect or Interior Designer for a remote position with their team.

Im...

Apple's restored Tower Theatre opens in Downtown LA thanks to Foster + Partners

2021-06-26T09:00:00-04:00

LA’s newest Apple Store is now up and running, showcasing a multimillion-dollar restoration project that brought an icon of cinema past to life in a push to stimulate post-pandemic business downtown with what promises to be the city’s latest tourist lure.

The Apple Tower Theatre officially opened this week after a three year overhaul brought the then-vacant landmark back to life.

Foster + Partners were behind the restoration effort aimed at converting the 94-year-old building into retail space CEO Tim Cook called a “testament to a city rich in culture and diversity” in a Twitter post on Thursday.

Today we opened the doors to our new store in downtown LA — Apple Tower Theatre. It’s a testament to a city rich in culture and diversity. We’re so excited to be a part of DTLA! pic.twitter.com/l4UQmZQ5x4
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 24, 2021

Piggybacking off a similar palazzo restoration recently in Rome, the firm worked with Apple and design director Doo Ho Lee to preserve elements of the...

OPEN completes new library/theater hybrid building for an international school in Shanghai

2021-01-21T13:02:00-05:00

As part of its work on the Shanhai Qinpu Pinghe International School, OPEN Architecture has completed the Pinghe Bibliotheater, a library/theater hybrid building that invites students into a free-flowing space of both learning and performance.

Photos by Jonathan Leijonhufvud.

"When we were given the extensive and jumbled-together program of a new school for 2000 students aged from 3 to 18 years, the immediate reaction was how dreadful it would be for a kid spending these many years fixed in one building," said the architects in a statement. "We decided to break away from the current trend of school-as-megastructure. Instead, the original program was deconstructed and grouped into many smaller and distinctive buildings, forming a village-like campus."

Photo by Jonathan Leijonhufvud.

Photo by WU Qingshan.

The Bibliotheater is just one of the many structures that will make up the new school. The different programs interlock like a "Chinese puzzle," creating a singular massing that is con...

10 spectacular performance spaces for your Friday inspiration

2020-01-10T08:00:00-05:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the NEW board Performance Spaces.

↑ Mariinsky II Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia by Diamond Schmitt Architects with KP ViPS

↑ Palais de la Musique et des Congrès Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France by dietrich.untertrifaller architekten

↑ BLUEBARN Theatre in Omaha, NE by Actual Architecture Co.; Photo: Paul Crosby

↑ Shaftesbury Theatre in London, UK by Bennetts Associates; Photo: Peter Cook

↑ The Theatre School, DePaul University in Chicago, IL by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects; Photo: Jeff Goldberg/Esto

↑ Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, CA by SPF:architects

↑ Theatre Agora in Lelystad, The Netherlands by UNSt...

Newly released images of MAD Architect's Yiwu Grand Theater proposal showcase beautiful glass sails

2019-07-01T15:56:00-04:00

The Yiwu Grand Theater's larger than life presence along the Dongyang River is not all for show. MAD Architects aims to create a structure that will be a "monument for the city." Envisioned as an immersive public space for inhabitants and visitors alike, the overall design for the theater will function as a beautiful cultural destination intending on "connecting inhabitants to the waterfront from a new perspective," according to MAD's recent press release.

The entrancing glass sails are designed to mimic the traditional Chinese junks that filled the waters of the city traditionally known for its trading history. Considered a growing center for international trade and commerce, MAD decided to use the curves from the sails of these ships to express a weightless and transparent design for the theater's canopy.

According to t...

With no wheelchair ramp, Tony Award winner Ali Stroker couldn't join her cast and crew on stage to celebrate their win

2019-06-12T15:15:00-04:00

After her win, Stroker spoke to reporters about the lack of accessibility on Broadway. She said that most of the theaters’ backstage areas are not generally accessible to performers with disabilities. “I would ask theater owners and producers to really look into how they can begin to make the backstage accessible so that performers with disabilities can get around,” she said, per The New York Times.

Ali Stroker became the first person to use a wheelchair to win a Tony Award during Sunday night's glitzy ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Her historical win — which was for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in the acclaimed Broadway revival of “Oklahoma!” — is a milestone in bolstering the representation of people with disabilities.

However, there was an obstacle for Stroker during the ceremony that is all too common for people with disabilities in everyday life: No ramp had been built to connect the audience seating area to the main stage. In one instance, she had to wait in the wings on stage in case she won in her individual category. Then when “Oklahoma!” won Best Revival of a Musical, Stroker could not join the rest of the cast and crew on stage to accept the award. While Stroker generally had a celebratory night, that moment was yet another disheartening reminder that basic universal accessibility needs are still easily overlooked.

...

O-S Architectes redesigns local Jacques Carat Theater in Cachan, Paris

2018-10-25T15:36:00-04:00

Back in 2011, O-S Architectes won the competition to restructure and expand the Jacques Carat Theater. Located in the Cachan commune in Paris, the original theater was built in 1988 and inaugurated the following year. The theater's restructuring was completed last year and now comprises of two simple volumes, which are organized around the existing central auditorium.

Photo: Cyrille Weiner.

The first volume is a transparent building with multiple openings and the foyer, which then leads to the auditoriums in the second volume. Composed of terracotta elements, the second volume envelopes the project like a “stage curtain”. The theater entrance is like “an outstretched hand that prompts and guides visitors, [and] is marked by a fold that paces the length of the façade,” O-S Architectes says.

Photo: Cyrille Weiner.

The ground floor includes a spacious reception area, two auditor...

A giant robotic spider climbed around a cathedral in Ottawa, and local Catholics called it "demonic"

2017-08-07T14:59:00-04:00

But as Canadian Catholic News reported, some individuals were far from impressed with the 65-foot-long spider, which rises 18 feet when at rest and over 42 feet when in motion. Critics expressed their outrage on the archbishop Terrence Prendergast’s Facebook wall, with one woman reportedly describing Kumo as “disturbing, disappointing, and even shameful.” Others apparently referred to it as “demonic” and “sacrilegious.”

Canada celebrated its 150th anniversary over the weekend of July 27th. Part of the celebration featured giant robots put on by La Machine, a street theatre company that constructs unusual objects for performances in public spaces. The company built two robots, a mechanical dragon-horse hybrid and a giant mechanical spider, that spent the celebratory weekend walking around Ottawa and engaging in dramatic battles.

Found via La Machine's facebook.

As part of the performance, La Machine installed the spider on the top of Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica. The Cathedral, led by archbishop Terrence Prendergast, had agreed to feature Kumo, the mechanical spider, when approached by the theatre company, seeing it as a way to cooperate with the city and be a part of the celebration. The Cathedral also sits opposite the National Art Gallery and the famous Louise Bourgeois bronze arachnid, "Maman," making it the perfect location to feature La Machine's very own arachnid.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;a...

Take a 360° tour of Steinert Hall, Boston's iconic underground theater

2017-07-26T17:40:00-04:00

Built in 1896 for piano dealers M. Steinert & Sons, Steinert Hall is a magnificent six-story limestone and brick building tucked 40 feet below the street level. Appropriately nicknamed “The Little Gem”, it was designed by Winsell&Weterell and incorporated a Beaux Arts-style facade with terra-cotta ornament and a copper cornice.

Until the 1940s the space functioned as a grand venue for performances—its curved walls bounced compositions performed by many iconic musicians including Polish pianist and former prime minister of Poland, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and pianist/composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Now in ill-repair, the concert auditorium has not been used since its closure in 1942 due to fire code restrictions and the prohibitive cost of upgrading the hall. However, in May of 2015, it was announced that the hall would be renovated in an attempt to open it again for performances.

Paul Murphy, who formerly owned Steinert Hall, noted, “people walk by here every day and they don’t kno...

First theater to be built outside of Copenhagen in over a century opens in Denmark

2017-03-27T15:03:00-04:00

One of the oldest towns in Denmark, Hjørring, has just received a brand new theater - the first to be built outside the Danish capital, Copenhagen, in over a century. Designed by the democratic architecture practice Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, the 4,200 m2 cultural facility hosts a Music hall, Black Box, Rehearsal hall and 430-seat flexible hall including an “in-the-round” theater. As a multifunctional complex, the building also houses offices, a spacious lobby area, a café and backstage area with workshop and dressing rooms. The small town with a population of 25,000 has been growing in recent years and the architects are hoping the new Vendsyssel Theater will become a dynamo for the entire region’s cultural life. This wish is already shaping up to be true as the theater premiered to an entirely sold out season.

From the architects:

The building appears as a composition of cubic blocks. The warm rusty red corten steel facades correspond with its surroundings during the day, ...

Jems Architecki's Polish conference center is built on an old coal mine

2016-07-29T14:52:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Figueras International Seating.

Katowice, a city of 300,000 inhabitants in the South of Poland, wants to leave its past of mining industry behind. In the heart of the city, and on what was formerly a mine and its inevitable mountains of mining residue, today we find there the new City Conference Centre: MCK ‐ International Conference Centre (ICC), designed by the most internationally known group in Poland, Jems Architecki.

The building, a unique block of 388,500m3, was erected (or submerged, depending how you look at it) in the new cultural area of the city, right next to the Spodek (saucer in English), the emblematic building of 1962, symbol of the city and which needed to be complemented in both aesthetics and in what it had to offer. Together they form Poland's largest Conference Centre.

After three years of construction, the ICC shows colossal dimensions. The structure is divided in two and at the intersection, the architects have created hills that ...

Cutting across the Chicago Architecture Biennial: Andrés Jaque's "Superpowers of Ten" performance

2015-10-12T18:45:00-04:00

A sausage as tall as you are. A skin cell the size of a dinner plate. The universe, in a glittery fan. These are a few of the props used by Andrés Jaque, founding architect of the Office for Political Innovation, in his "Superpowers of Ten" performance – a play staged on the ground floor of the Chicago Athletic Association during the opening weekend of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Inspired by the Eames’ 1977 “Powers of Ten” film (the same year the Biennial’s namesake conference was held), the under-an-hour performance investigates the power of design to scale up, or down, into historic social and cultural sea changes.

Initially developed for the Lisbon Architecture Triennial in 2013, “Superpowers” is staged like a super-polemical elementary school play: a narrator guides actors, dressed in cartoonish cardboard or papier-mâché costumes, through stories of 20th century design history. The opening act plays direct homage to the Eames’ film, recreating the zooming in and out on the...