Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2019 - Public - 51

the stage, generally, the audience can enter from the main lobby on the second
floor and go down the auditorium tiers.
For some performances in this on-stage
theatre, it isn't possible to enter through
the auditorium and audience members
are asked to enter from the delivery entrance and go up temporary stairs to the
stage level. Some performances are even
held in the foyers. The concept of "any
place becomes a theatre" is thus cleverly
planned and executed.
The exterior of the building appears
transparent. Toyo Ito explored structural
transparency in another project, Sendai
Mediatheque (2001), built three years before Matsumoto. In that building, the concept was realized by weaving tube steel
frames into nets to form multi-layered
floors and cover them with the glass ffacade. In designing MPAC, Ito pursued a
different route to achieve transparency.
Panels made of Glass-fiber Reinforced
Cement (GRC) are used to cover almost
the entire building. The GRC panels are
inlaid with glass glazing in seven sizes
and shapes. Owing to the variety of size
and density of the inlaid glass, it appears

as if ground water is bubbling, or sunlight
filtering through trees. It is just amazing
to witness. This appearance seems to
be representing the region, which is rich
with water, or the place blessed by the
trees of a shrine next to the theatre.
The design of Matsumoto places
the stage at the center of the site. Thus,
the old tree was preserved and a waterfront space was created on the south side
where the original pond was located.
Great public spaces were created, all
linked by a gentle sinuous stair lit by glass
panels set into the facade. Functionally,
the scheme has multiple loading docks
with good access and circulation is well
integrated into the neighborhood.
MPAC was completed in 2004 and
is a highly usable, attractive building with
great public spaces achieved on an incredibly constrained site. It departs radically
from the traditional formal symmetry of
older theatre buildings and instead creates unique public spaces internally and
externally; many of these can be used as
temporary, improvised theatres or meeting places. An extraordinary sinuous wall
provides both a sensual external elevation

and one wall of the internal staircase penetrated by small irregular windows. It is
amazing all this has been successfully realized on such a challenging site.
Shozo Motosugi is Prof. Dr. of
Nihon University, Tokyo. He
studied at the Free University
of Berlin, Institute of Theatre
Studies, and researched at the
Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Schaubühne am
Lehniner Platz. Motosugi has served as a juror
for architectural competitions and has designed
many cultural facilities in collaboration with
various architects, including the New National
Theatre in Japan, Nara Centennial Hall in
Japan, Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre in
Japan, Kunstlinie Almere Flevoland in The
Netherlands, Taichung Metropolitan Opera in
Taiwan, and Suzhou Shishan Art Theater in
China. Reach him at motosugi.shozo@gmail.
com.

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THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

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