


The project provides an all-time use extension of a public space on Clarastrasse. It hosts cultural events, theatre, performance, and film screenings. Primary gesture is an outer perimeter. Added volumes are defining the internal garden. Besides the permeable park, open-air niches are used for outdoor cinema and theatre. It makes an active presence in Clarastrasse with its cultural function, introducing people into a hidden world behind the scenes, building’s threshold as a perimeter inside which public happens. A reference point for the outer skin is an abstract wall in the city with inviting light, which relates to licht-architecture of cinemas. The backstage character reflects itself in the surrounding scenography workshops. A light steel scaffolding structure is covered with semi-translucent panels. The project redefines the traditional typology of cinemas and theatres, opening them up to the outside world, allowing for a versatile programme and the creation of open-air stages.
The steel structure
The structure is a steel frame, built from repetitive profiles, like a scaffolding structure. This light and strong construction allows it to be a stable outdoor “wall”. The modular structure is accessible on most of the floors for visitors, performing artists and workers, and it works as a gallery. The grid of the structure follows the outer perimeter of the site, so as to introduce a large amount of theatre garden space between the wall and the outside streets. It has an attached translucent panel that creates a sense of closure to the space, and through the use of tension cables and steel beams attached to the main wall structure, it allows the panel to be angled. The steel is used as well in full structure of the three boxes. Steel frames follow the external grid, allowing for flexible internal spaces without columns in the foyer or performative spaces. The use of steel and polycarbonate panels in both types of structure, the exterior wall and the interior theatre boxes, creates a materially and structurally coherent space.