Suprastudio 2012-2013 - David Stamatis

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL PERFORMANCE CENTER

DS from David Stamatis on Vimeo.

As Performance Space Typologies the Opera and Circus are on opposite ends of the typology spectrum. Cirque Du Soliel shows are a kind of a hybrid between the two.

In the plan of the Paris Opera House the figure ground of performance space compared to back of house, amenities, and procession is a very small proportion. In the Barnum & Baily Big Top plan there is the opposite effect with almost the entire plan devoted to performance space.

This project utilizes a moving element to fluidly transition between these typologies.

The first move was a typology shift as well as a formal idea. Called the TRI FLY.

So, here we take the traditional theater setup with flytower side and back stages and perform a series of operations. The first of which deletes the side stages and splits the flytower and backs stage into two.The second operation cants the flytowers and lifts the backstage chunks up in the air. The last operation cants the substage to create a third diagonal fly that comes from below the ground.

This gives the performance hall the advantage of three separate multi-use backstage areas with direct diagonal access to the hall.

As a visitor to the performance center you have three options in terms of seeing a show. The first is that you pay for a normal ticket and go directly from the bifurcated lobby to the performance hall and watch the show from conventional seats. The second option would be just to enter the public restaurant and lounge side of the building and you would see the back stage performance with a few glimpses into the hall as the grid moves open and closed. The third option would be to go see the first show of the night as a backstage show while eating dinner then going to see the second show in the hall.