Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2021 - 21

G. E. Kidder Smith said, " It abounds
with ideas: its overall planning, which includes the eventual development of the
entire area; its art, which was carefully
integrated with the theatre design from
the beginning; and its clever architectural
marriage between auditorium and stage "
(October 1963, 183). Victor Glasstone
described the foyers as the " finest, most
successful, in Europe " (November 1963,
555-556).
Gelsenkirchen offered a successful
main auditorium that brought actor and
audience close together, along with a
very flexible studio theatre. It is a good
example of the close relationship between artists and architects at a time
that saw German art students working
on the rebuilding of Coventry city centre; here the French and English artists
were personal friends.Its influence was
limited, however, because of its very size;
Peter Moro visited it before designing the
Nottingham Playhouse in 1960-1961 but
found it too large and its stage facilities
too technical for a British budget (personal comment, April 1994). However, he
repeated the basic concept of the auditorium as a decorated drum set within an
open, rectangular foyer.
The Musiktheater im Revier is but one
of the enormous number of new theatres
and opera houses built in West Germany
after the Second World War. It is also
indicative of the very privileged position
these buildings still hold in German society, beautifully maintained and used
solely as vehicles of high culture.
Elain Harwood is a senior
architectural investigator
with Historic England, a
government agency for
building conservation based
in London. She completed a Ph.D. at the
University of Bristol in 2010 on the
buildings of London's South Bank, based
around the Royal Festival Hall, which built
on work identifying post-war theatres for
preservation. She has also written Space,
Hope and Brutalism, English architecture
1945-75 (Yale, 2015), Chamberlin, Powell
and Bon (2011) and Art Deco Britain
(2019). In January 2014, she had the
privilege of visiting Gelsenkirchen and of
meeting its architect Walter Ruhnau, as part
of her research for an article " Theatres in West
Germany, 1945-70, " in Alistair Fair, ed.,

Plan of theatre auditorium, stage and foyers

40
metres

Musiktheater im Revier, Gelsenkirchen, comparative plan by David Hamer. | Drawing by David Hamer.

Long section through theatre auditorium and stage

40
metres

Musiktheater im Revier, Gelsenkirchen, comparative section by David Hamer. | Drawing by David Hamer.

Setting the Scene, Perspectives on
twentieth-century theatre architecture
(Ashgate 2015). Harwood also edits
Twentieth Century Architecture, the
journal of the Twentieth Century Society,
and the series Twentieth-Century
Architects published by Liverpool
University Press.

Ruhnau, Werner. 2007. Der Raum, Das Spiel un
Die Künste / Space, Play and the Arts. Berlin:
Jovis/ Gelsenkirchen, Stadt Gelsenkirchen.

Architect and Building News, March 10, 1965, Vol.
227, No.10, 463-71.

Smith, G. E. Kidder. 10 October 1963. " New
German Theatres and Concert Halls, "
Architectural Record,
Vol. 134, No. 10.

Schubert, Hannelore. 1971. The Modern Theatre,
Architecture, Stage Design, Lighting. London:
Pall Mall Press, (Originally: 1971. Moderner
Theaterbau, Stuttgart: Karl Krämer Verlag.)

Works Cited

Glasstone, Victor. " Auditoria Galore, " Architectural
Design, Vol. 33, No. 11, 555-6.
" New Theatre by Werner Ruhnau, Rave, and M.C.
Von Hausen, Architects. " March 1960. Arts and
Architecture, Vol. 77, No. 3, 18-19, 32.

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Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2021

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