 Lower Level Plan
 Upper Level Plan & Lower Level Roof Plan
 Auditorium
 Ground floor entry and stairs to dress circle. | Review Patrick O`Carrigan Photography Ben Wrigley Entrances are everything at Canberra’s Street Theatre, designed by May Flannery for a centre-city site beside the Australian National University. Standing proud of the intersection of University Avenue and Childers Street like Prometheus, Canberra’s new community theatre by Peter May David Flannery Architects is a bold and assured statement for a young firm. Like its conceptualists, the $2 million theatre is the new kid on the block—Block 1 Section 30 ACT to be precise. It was an undeveloped ground awaiting the design eye of Peter May.
In the theatre, entrances are everything. While contemplating the site, May noticed the well-trodden desire line cutting the corner through the plane trees. This unheralded approach to the Australian National University, at the interface between city and campus, subsequently became the guiding principle for the angled face of the foyer. In this street, the foyer itself becomes a theatre in which the community acts and observes the spectacle. The overscaled glazed facade of the theatre is like a proscenium which puts the patron on `stage’. By day, the winged walls focus on the plane of the entry beyond the splayed flagstaffs which flank the frontal approach. By night, the curtain lifts—seen in reverse, the porte cochere makes a spectacular silhouette, backlit and dramatic. This symbolic set-piece is a deliberate contrivance. We now appreciate the angled void between the two masses of the auditorium and rehearsal room as a false perspective. Off right, the steel stairs to the dress circle read as a theatrical device; so do the lighting grids and raked ceiling read as cues. The idea is one of participation and involvement, which is central to the notion of community. This engagement in movement and spatial sequence is cemented by the podium. While characteristically Canberra, this podium differs in that it is fragmented into a series of wheeling planes. Here, level changes are handled with aplomb through platforms, steps, ramps and stairs. PMDF have achieved far more than a `decorated shed.’ The cella-like auditorium is a Canberra Red brick block formally oriented to the Childers Street axis in response to the alignment of the other buildings in the street. The leading edge of the theatre—the patching and performance control booth—gives access to the marque or showboard which, with its outrigger lights, advertises forthcoming events. The scenography is further set by the superimposition of a metal grid over the otherwise blank walls. The sophisticated resolution of the theatre in plan is matched by the quality and consistency of the detailing (all the more remarkable for the builder defaulting at 75 percent completion). Familiar motifs in PMDF’s lexicon include the splayed parapet capping, the rhythmic insertion of small square windows, the overlapping and projecting De Stijl-like sunhoods, the off-white Murobond panels and the Breueresque breakup of curtain wall glazing. By the architects’ account, the theatre functions well, with a serviceable back-of-house, an intimate but well-fitted 250-seat auditorium and a rehearsal room of similar shape and size to the stage. The café/bar area has traded so successfully that it is now the subject of an expanded design which will add a wedge-shaped room to the right of the main entry. This is but one of several expansion proposals built into a clever base plan. If any criticism is to be made, it is, for now, that the building suffers from Canberra’s obsession with the singular object in soliloquy with its surroundings. Hopefully this will soon change, with Peter May and David Flannery’s placemaking proposal for an adjacent visual arts access facility which will animate the street with galleries and retail outlets. Patrick O`Carrigan is an architect, urban designer and critic, now Manager Urban Architecture, City Projects, Sydney City Council. Street Theatre, Canberra Architect Peter May David Flannery Architects—design director Peter May, project architect (design and documentation) Bruce Townsend, construction director David Flannery, project architect (construction) Richard Phillips. Civil, Hydraulic, Structural Engineers Northrop Consultants. Electrical Engineer Lindquist Johnson Consultants. Landscape Architects Denton Corker Marshall. Quantity Surveyors Wilde and Woollard. Workspace Consultant David Harman. Contractors Dimitri Pedashenko. Project Managers (in final phase) Integrated Construction (Management Services). Client ACT Capital Works Branch for Department of Land and Planning, Arts and Special Events. |
