Complexity and contradiction in proscenium theater design—The last one hundred years

Proscenium theater design, rooted in Baroque tradition of court theater design and Beaux Arts architectural design achieved apogee in Opera de Paris (1875). Bayreuth Festpielhaus (1876) touched off a controversy in theater design among architecture, engineering, and artistic style that persists to this day. Opera de Paris was the last theater of historical importance where the architect alone made all crucial design decisions. Bayreuth Festpielhaus was the first theater of historical significance where the architect shared responsibility for design and technology with a theater consultant. At the time there was no such thing as an acoustical consultant. The ensuing century (1880–1980) changed everything. The industrial revolution changed structure and added mechanical and electrical engineering to the building process. Sabine provided the method for acoustical predesign of interior spaces. Post W.W. II computer revolution provided sophistication of operation. Mechanized transportation changed forever the relation of theater buildings to the overall fabric of urban design. These disparate disciplines have each contributed to the complexity of design and execution of theater buildings and the still unresolved artistic styles have all together become the modus operandi of contemporary theater design. It is for reasons both of a program dictating multiple use and the sheer magnitude of the engineering solutions resulting therefrom that apogee of proscenium theater design for our time will have been consumated in Teatro Teresa Carrena to be opened in Caracas, Venezuela (1983).