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Bauhaus Influences on an Evolving Theatre Architecture: Some Developmental Stages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Ned A. Bowman
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Extract

One would today be hard-pressed to recall any other period since the mid-nineteen-twenties when such widespread concern among theatre practitioners has been devoted to planning of buildings primarily intended to house-performed legitimate drama. The government-supported reconstruction boom in German language countries, the conduct of three major international conferences on theatre building in the past three years, tangible progress on New York's Lincoln Center, and the Ford Foundation's widely-publicized support of theoretical planning for an Ideal Theatre-all these events are likely to overshadow for the moment efforts of those planners of the 'twenties who were forced by an economic and political untimeliness to “cast their anchor(s) far into the sea of fantasy and distant possibilities,” sadly realizing that little opportunity for innovation could exist at the time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , November 1965 , pp. 116 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1965

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References

NOTES

1 Oskar Schlemmer, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Farkas Molnar, Die Bühne im Bauhaus (München: n.d.). The translation, containing some additional material, is recently published as The Theater of the Bauhaus, trans. Arthur S. Wensinger, with an introduction by Walter Gropius (Middletown, Conn., 1961). The original contains two statements by Schlemmer outlining his own philosophy on the unique aspects of theatrical presentation, and reflections on the form which it should assume. “Man and Art Figure” outlines his theoretical basis for work, and “Theatre [Biihne]” is written to accompany a practical demonstration. All subsequent quotations are taken from the Wensinger translation.

2 Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo, The New Vision (New York; 1947), p. 63.Google Scholar

3 Schlemmer, , op. cit., p. 91.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 50.

5 Eurhythmies was the basis for integrated dance and physical culture activities of Emile Jacques-Dalcroze at Hellerau, near Dresden, during the period prior to World War I. Jacques-Dalcroze's collaboration with Adolphe Appia is reflected in Appia's treatise The Work of Living Art.

6 Feininger, , “The Bauhaus: Evolution of an Idea,” Criticism II (Summer, 1960), 272–274.Google Scholar

7 Schlemmer, , op. cit., p. 81.Google Scholar

8 Reale Accademia d'ltalia, Fondazione Alessandro Volta, “Convegno di Lettere; 8–14 Ottobre, 1934–XII; Tema: II Teatro Drammatico” (Roma, 1935), p. 154.

9 Bauhaus; Zeitschrift für Gestaltung, Nr. 3 (1927), p. 3 (illustrations).

10 Schlemmer, , op. cit., p. 83Google Scholar (caption). The platforms are also illustrated in Bauhaus; Zeitschrift für Gestaltung, Nr. 3 (1927), Illust. No. 1; and in an oil painting by Lux Feininger, of activity on the stage (painting in the artist's possession). Hans Vetter, whose father Adolph Vetter made over the Redoutensaal for Max Reinhardt in 1922, and who participated in similar stage design experiments in Vienna during the same period, describes the common use of similar cubical units, called the “praktikabel,” which were seventy-five centimeters on a side. Interview, December 8, 1961.

11 Moholy-Nagy, in Schlemmer, , op. cit., p. 68.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 67.

13 Moholy-Nagy, , The New Vision, p. 61.Google Scholar

14 Schlemmer, , op. cit., p. 89.Google Scholar Virtually identical “settings” to that sketched on the vertical (?) axis of Weininger's Kugeltheater appear in at least two of the competition submissions for a theater at Kharkov, in 1931: Baugilde, XIII, Heft 20 (October, 1931), p. 1567, “Entwurf ‘R’” and 1576 “Entwurf Architekt Hans Holzbauer, Berlin.”

15 Piscator, Irwin, Das Politische Theater (Berlin, 1929), p. 121–122.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 122–123.

17 Fitch, , Walter Gropius, (New York, 1960), p. 22.Google Scholar

18 Personal Interview with Walter Gropius, August 10, 1961.

19 Fitch, p. 25.

20 Giedion, , Walter Gropius, p. 66.Google Scholar

21 Reed, Herbert, “Modern Drama, The Architectural Hold-up,” London Mercury (September, 1935), 431.Google Scholar

22 Rosse, Herman, “The Circus Theatre,” Theatre Arts, VII, No. 3 (July, 1923), 241.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 233.

24 Personal interview August 10, 1961.

25 Gropius, , “Le Theatre Total,” l'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, XX (February, 1950), 13.Google Scholar

26 Gropius, , “Modern Theatre Construction; Regarding the Rebuilding of the Piscator Theatre in Berlin,” The Drama, XVIII (February, 1928), 136.Google Scholar

27 Ibid.

28 Johnson, , “Nine Actual Theatre Designs,” Musical America (January, 1961), p. 12.Google Scholar

29 Gabo, Naum, Gabo; Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings (and) Engravings (London, Lund Humpheries, 1957), plates 24–26.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., plates 47–49.

31 While there were no later modifications to the project, Gropius told me lhat he would now eliminate the galleries on the cupola, which he feels provide an unfavorable relationship with the various playing areas. “Six balconies is too much.” (Personal interview, August 10, 1901.)

32 Tabanli, Hayati, “Die Bedeutung des Bühnevorraumes für die Entwicklung des heutigen Theatcrbaues,” (diss. Hannover Technische Hochschule, 1955), p. 61.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., p. 62.

34 “Theatres of Today and Tomorrow,” Theatre Arts, VII, No. 3 (July, 1923), pp. 214, 222–233.

35 Schlemmer, , op. cit., p. 57–58.Google Scholar

36 However, see the project by Ralph Alswang and Paul Rudolph for a theatre incorporating a “Living Screen” integration of film and live action, reproduced in The Ideal Theatre; Eight Concepts (New York, 1962), pp. 13–26. The closest approximation is found in multiple projection facilities demonstrated recently at a number of international fairs, notably the New York Port Authority Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.

37 Patentsclirift 470451, Kl. 37f, Gr. 1 (my translation).