Concept - what lies beneath

Cinema vs live performances
(2D vs 3D/4D, Solitary vs shared experience; Uniform vs unique performance)
Actors are real, the performance is unique (or has the potential to be), the performance is alive/live
Historical theatres have a history (ghosts of the past, remnants of past occupants and events, trace evidence)

Theatre - an act, what is real? How do you know the performance is 'live'.
How do we emphasis the 'living' aspect?:

• sounds
• quality and direction,
• no technological barrier between you and the source (performer)
• background noises from those around you in the audience, creaking seats
• smells
• of the theatre (coffee, wine/beer, food, old wood/leather, deodorisers, stage makeup)
• of the performance (smells associated with musical instruments, smoke, fragrances)
• of the audience (perfume, cigarette smoke,
• touch
• the chair/carpet/armrest/doorknobs
• breezes/drafts created by movement in the performance
• visual
• multidirectional visual stimuli
• no technological barrier between you and the source (performance), no screen/3D glasses etc
• imperfections, 'mistakes', flaws
• interaction with the performance/audience, feedback from the performance

scratch the surface, something real is beneath - there is no veneer 

something covering the surface, a veneer/shroud

Shrouds

• death shrouds/burial shrouds, 
• what lies beneath,  
• a cover, concealment
• the final embodiment of an individual’s life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud

First attempt: Brick with resin - the blurred feeling,
However, the resin could never get quite thick enough as it soaked into the brick

Research into ruins

Notes from reading: 'In Ruins' (Christopher Woodward)

• Buildings in Rome from 410-450AD were plundered but not destroyed by the Goths, so where did they go? They were recycled - in the thousand years that followed ancient Rome was remade as Christian Rome. Thieves stole the gold and bronze statues to melt down, and the Colosseum was leased as a quarry by the popes. Lime burning was the most destructive - the best aggregate for mortar is powdered lime and the easiest way to get this is to burn marble... Until the 18th Century, the only houses in the Forum were cottages of the lime-burners and hovels of beggars/thieves.
• English Botanist, Richard Deakin (1855) catalogued at least 40 species of plants growing in the Colosseum - some were so rare that the only explanation was that nearly 2000 years ago seeds had been scattered in the sand from bodies of animals brought in from other countries (Persia, Egypt) for the gladiators.
• In ruins, movement is halted, and time suspended.
• '...dust in the air suspended..' - from a poem of TS Elliot, having served as an air-raid warden in WWII

inhale exhale

The feeling of movement/colour/blurring/atmosphere created by these images of Vincent Ward.

Fluidity, liquifaction, liquid

Blurring, submerged, translucent, opaque

Contrasts (colour, solid/fluid)

Breath - gasp,  inhale, exhale

Alive, living, transforming

 

 http://vincentwardfilms.com/concepts/motion-painting/optical-flow/

more research...

The Catalonian Palace of Music, Barcelona (extension done by Oscar Tusquets)

RIBA Journal 2007 Nov v114 p54-68

St Edwards School (Oxford) Architect Haworth Tompkins. Contains a reconfigurable pneumatic floor (Nivoflex Airstage):

• small theatre, wanted to accomodate all kinds of performances
• the stage system is used across the whole floor (stage + audience space)
• floor can be raised and lowered on scissor legs up to a height of 1m
• each 2x1m panel is independent to give different configurations
• each panel cost 1000pounds.
• requirements - types of performances, stage set loads

The mystery of old theatres

The main purpose of theatre architecture is to provide a channel for energy - laughter, awe, tragedy, movement, sound - energy flowing back and forth between the actor and audience.

 (Civic Theatre, Auckland CBD) 

Atmosphere

In a sensitively and more authentically restored old theatre, audiences will accept a higher density than they would in either an overgilded restoration or in a brand new theatre (more seats, more revenue). This density, together with the atmosphere created in a well restored theatre, can increase not only the box office takings but also the heightened sense of expectation in an audience, and so the likelihood of theatrical success.

• 'warm, alive, tattered magnificance' ' smells and feels like a theatre'
• theatre research (Richard Kuller, 1977) measurements of arousal in an audience:
• those who had been in a festive space (old theatre with lots of colour and patterns, a 'high information rate') laughed and cried quicker during a performance than those who had been in a darker, decoration-free space (a modern theatre).
• actors who have tried to warm up an audience in many new theatres confirm this

Unravelling the mystery of a good theatre

Study the past and those channels for energy which run under attractive architectural forms, and far from purposeless decoration.

• Geometry: a high proportion of succcessful theatres are set out according to the principles of 'sacred geometry' - a system of dynamic spatial harmony (see pp162-165 Actor Architecture Audience).

• The science of theatre building must come from studying what it is that brings about the most vivid relationship between people (Peter Brook).

Notes from Ian MacIntosh's Actor Architecture & Audience:

1. The architecture of the auditorium and the stage are one of the main considerations - good theatre architecture should support the actor and assist the audience
2. A theatre space of whatever form must have a quality of both rest and movement - it cannot be assessed without audience and actors.
3. Most research suggests that successful theatre spaces have been set out according to some geometric set of rules
4. Placing the highest importance on new technology can result in a building that dates quickly
5. Perfect sightlines result in 'the tame, conventional, often cold hall' (Peter Brook). Seats need not all face the playing area, which may itself alter its position. Nor is it necessary for all the audience to see and hear perfectly - the priority is to place people into 'the most vivid relationship one with another' (Brook).
6. A literate theatre person should be consulted to explain the metaphysical functionalism of a good theatre...(ie. in addition to all the physical requirements)
7. An endlessly adaptable theatre space is not really possible...without an architectural framework a 'free' space is not a theatre space but a hangar or film studio awaiting the construction within it....a collection of machinery: a fixed from theatre (thrust or proscenium) which provides some opportunities for altering offers one sort of flexibility using lighting etc.
8. Density of the audience as well as audience size is important. Less densely packed theatres dilute responses. Single tier auditoriums are less space efficient than a multi-tier auditorium and more difficult for actors to animnate. Likewise, a more comfortable audience is also generally less alert.
9. Seating capacity is a misleading way to compare sizes of theatres (see below)
10. Less comfortable audiences will proivde a more concentrated response but may put off some patrons. The answer is to provide different seating for different types of audience (highly priced comfortable seats, lower priced more densely packed seats) to attract the greatest possible spread of age, wealth and education into the theatre.
11. A theatre architect who manipulates audience density, comfort and sightlines will find it easier to design a dynamic space animaged by the energy of both the actors and the audience. A fan shaped auditorium where all are comfortably equal to view the show is less likely to provide feedback and animate the theatre.

Audience size

Older theatres held far more people - for example, the original Rose theatre (below) held about 2,000 people in a space which today would not hold more than about 400-500.

 Reasons:

• 20th century bodies are taller and wider than the average Elizabethan
• not many people today would tolerate standing for an entire show as they did in the central yard of the Rose
• seated audiences today demand more comfort and leg room
• fire and safety regulations mean aisles and staircases are added which further limit capacity

So the difference in seating capactiy between a modern theatre and:

• an Elizabethan theatre of the same area = 1:3 or 1:4
• an 18th century theatre of the same area = 1:2 or 1:3
• a turn of the century West End or Broadway theatre of the same are = 1:1.5 or 1:2.5 depending on whether standing capacity is taken into account

The Rose Theatre (1587) - an Elizabethan theatre built in 1587 by Philip Henslowe and a grocer named John Cholmley.

Research - NZ modern theatre buildings

Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts

Waikato University, Concert Chamber = a fixed-tier auditorium for up to 340 or for conferences holding 250 - 300 pax. Playhouse Theatre = flat-floor, multi-configurable theatre space, with seating for 180 – 220 depending on staging requirements

Raye Freedman Arts Centre -

Newmarket, main auditorium that seats 258, six studios suitable for music, dance and theatre rehearsals, classes, meetings and conferences. Two studios have sprung floors suitable for dance.

Expressions Art & Entertainment Centre - 2003 (Architects+)

Upper Hutt, 200-seat theatre with flexibility for 40 at tables and 84 seated

Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre - 2005 (Cox Creative Spaces)

600 seat end stage format with some seating around the sides. Can also transform into a large flat floor area for banquets.

Bruce Mason Centre - 1996, 

http://www.bmcentre.co.nz/Theatre.html

Multifunctional theatre (ballet, opera, musicals, plays) - several possible modes and at maximum capacity seats 1164 theatre style.  In this mode theatre seats 916 patrons in the downstairs stalls, and 248 in the upstairs grand circle. Can also transform the auditorium into a large flat floor area for banquets.

Turner Centre - 2005, (Martyn Evans) 

Kerikeri, first stage completed in 2005. Seating = 400 (see http://www.martynevans.co.nz/new_zealand.htm)

http://www.centakeri.com/theatre.html

Founders Theatre - 1961, 2000

Hamilton
http://www.hamiltontheatres.co.nz/file/fileid/43654
Seating 1250

Christchurch seismic activity

Fault ruptures associated with the Feb 2012 and June 2012 earthquakes

Key: colours  show the amount the two sides of the fault slipped past each other during the earthquake. Red = slip > 1.8m, yellow = slip > 1.2m, and green = slip > 0.6m.
The arrows show the direction of slip, with the length of the arrow proportional to the size of the slip.
The squares measure 1km by 1km.

The faults do not break through to the ground surface. Slip occurs down to about 7-8km depth and up to within about 1km of the surface.
Both earthquakes caused parts of the Port Hills to move south, or southwest, and up. Parts of the Port Hills have risen by more than 40 centimetres.
The magnitude 6.3 February earthquake had a slip > 2.5m between the two sides of the fault at 4km depth. The south side of the fault moved generally up and west while the north side moved the opposite way.
The fault trends in a WSW-ENE direction from about Cashmere to just offshore of the estuary, and it slopes towards the southeast.
It is not uncommon to have two nearby faults breaking in different orientations like this. Both the faults are responding to stresses in the ground that are oriented in a WNW-ESE direction, midway between the orientations of the two faults.

This Google map image shows the fault plane (rectangular area) across the southern part of Christchurch and northern Port Hills. Colours on the fault plane indicate the amount of slip between the two sides of the fault (see Fig. 2). The contour lines indicate the amount (in mm) the land has risen (blue contours) or subsided (red contours) due to the slip on the fault. The white line is the contour where there was no change in height. The red, green and yellow coloured symbols show some of the GPS stations whose displacements were used to derive the fault slip model

 Image indicating ground displacement made by combining satellite radar images taken before and after the earthquake. The coloured image shows an “interference pattern” derived from X-band radar images taken on 19 and 23 February 2011 by the Italian Cosmo-SkyMed satellite. Each colour cycle represents 1.5 centimetres of ground displacement, so the total displacement between the western edge of the image and central Christchurch is about 25 centimetres.