In the Refuge, the Building and Outdoors. Four Cases of Recycling in Theatre Architecture

Abstract

The article focuses on four cases in the area of Barcelona of arts buildings and facilities with a theatre auditorium, which in the last twenty years have recycled and restored former cultural centres and association and exhibition premises. It aims to provide a first comparative study of them through an analysis that considers the approach in each case to architectonic, urban, heritage, artistic, regulatory and participatory aspects. The analysis makes a first assessment of the degree of complexity that can be achieved through the confluence of the diverse issues, scales and disciplines: from the city to the building, from the building to the stage, from the stage to the rehearsal room and the workshop. Thus, an array of diverse answers is offered to the question of whether this complexity and multidisciplinary coherence can be programmed, planned and implemented or whether it is the result of a fortuitous and exceptional situation. The research methodology is based on interviews with the agents involved (architects, coordinators, managers and creators), on the fieldwork in the buildings studied, on consulting architectonic projects, and on searching in archives and newspaper libraries the cultural projects and programmes of managing associations and groups. The approach of the research seeks to relate the fields surrounding the original architecture and the projects with the theatre activity and the aesthetic and artistic programme. Out of the relationship between these fields, which takes into account the performative function of architecture, diverse nuances, reinterpretations and limits emerge concerning the issues of obsolescence, restoration, preservation and heritage.