Temples for Music and Music for Temples

Czasopismo Techniczne, 2019

Values generated by art and culture usually almost automatically generate social values that appear around the source of the said art, and thus around theatre buildings or concert halls as well. They help to shape the sense of identity of a place, which is important both to local residents and to those from further afield who are interested in cultural events. The experience of social values created around a source of culture is, however, not always as obvious. Can social values be built in public spaces surrounding theatre or concert hall buildings independently of the cultural events that take place inside them? Three Polish built projects featuring theatre and entertainment buildings built over the past five years in Gdańsk, Warsaw and Katowice were selected in order to analyse this problem. They have won numerous distinctions and awards, including for their innovative solutions in terms of the public spaces created in their immediate vicinity.

Proceeding of the 7th International Conference S.ARCH, 2020

Public space has always been a contested subject regarding who it belongs to and how it is occupied. At the cultural buildings, it is amplified by the problem of commodification in the arts and culture sector. This paper defines the Institutional Public Space to look at the intersection of these two topics. It is a type of public space that is created by and representing institutional intention instead of natural occurrence, yet frequently, it is perceived or used quite differently than intended. Cultural Institutions nowadays can no longer be simply defined as public or private… This paper examines the oscillating position of cultural institutions between public and commercial interest by reviewing the space at key cultural buildings. The study demonstrates how physical space acts as a vehicle to manifest institutional intention and position. What could be the opportunity for cultural institutions to maintain or enhance their social value through the creation of public space? While most studies on cultural architecture focus on aesthetic or semiotic representation, this paper takes an approach to analyse socio‐spatial relationships through architectural drawings, particularly in plans, to focus on the inhabited space where social activities happen. The findings explain the formation of public space and its relationship to cultural institutions, along with a brief narrative of Hong Kong’s cultural development, to conclude with a projection to explore the future of cultural institutions and the public space it will produce.

Thresholds, 2006

International Seminar of Urban Form 2019 conference proceedings, 2019

Cultural buildings are the key-pieces that gives character to urban form, yet it is more often perceived as the iconic landmark, an isolated object that is devoid of context. The significance of cultural buildings should be more than its visual impact, but to play a greater part in the making of urban form. This paper explores the role of cultural buildings in the city beyond the nominal aesthetic or functional view. The architecture is then read as the container of social space, contributing to the public realm at a spatial and experiential dimension. Grounded in the approach of Nolli map and figure-ground drawings, cases of contemporary cultural buildings are examined in plan through multiple scale from building to site and districts, to review how they respond to the urban context. The review of two international cases of cultural architecture sets the tone of this approach, followed by a detail analysis of the recently complete theatre at the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong. The result of this study presents a renewed perspective on cultural buildings in the city, and their contribution to the creation of public space and urban form. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

13th symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Iconography of the Performing Arts

Thinking of music performance, we usually consider the action happening on the theater or concert stage, in front of spectators. However, performance space surrounding the spectators, its interior and exterior architectural decoration, as well as fashion of spectators and their habits are also constituent elements of a performance, supplementing the experience of a live event. Decoration elements, such as mythological compositions painted on theater ceilings, state insignia placed above the proscenium, or portraits of distinguished playwrights, composers or performers on theatre facades reflect the attitudes of past times and ideologies of political powers patronizing performances; sculptures accumulated over the time in theaters' foyers visually represent historical memory of the space becoming (national) shrines to performing arts. Theaters and other performance spaces are architectural artworks, often representing the pinnacle in artistic careers of their architects and interior designers, frequently appropriating the status of urban iconic symbols. The conference will focus on visual programs and decorations of spaces in which musical performances occur and the self-representation of audiences attending performances. All types of performance venues and performances which include music should be considered, including concerts and music theatre, religious ceremonies, contemporary popular music events, urban spectacles, pageantries and parades. Proposals are invited concerning: (1) Architectural interior and exterior decorations of performance spaces; (2) Reflections of political power presented in theatrical performances; (3) Ideological context of religious rituals and their spaces: (4) Political power demonstrated in public spectacles and parades; (5) Theater and concert hall architecture: (6) Spectators and audiences (habits, fashion, hair-styling, behavior): (7) Interpretation and issues concerning opera staging and scenography in general English is preferred language for the conference presentations.

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

This essay argues that the best way to discuss the ‘meaning’ of a building is to describe it as a peripatetic narrative. In order to discuss buildings as spatial stories, I will begin by defining narrative as a meaningful sequence of events, signs, lines, scenes, places, spaces, etc., in which each component assumes its meaning primarily through its relation to other parts of the sequence that precede and follow it. This definition of narrative allows me to think of a building as a proto-cinematic apparatus in which the architect carefully arranges a set of different scenes, impressions, objects, experiences, and views into meaningful sequences that unfold before and around the moving spectator passing along a set of possible itineraries. In describing these scenes and itineraries and setting them into relation to the building’s cultural context, we can begin to ‘read’ buildings as important cultural artifacts that play an active role in the institution of society and can be studied...

2021

Recent studies on the role of architecture within urban restructuring processes have become dominated by narratives on neoliberal urban entrepreneurialism, which consider urban development projects as key instruments of growth-oriented regimes and urban elites. In this paper, I want to focus on the role that iconic architecture can play within a community to shape a collective identity and institute an urban imaginary. This study illustrates current cultural developments in Hong Kong, where most of the cultural budget has been spent on the global megaproject of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD). In contrast, the new development areas, particularly the later generations of new towns, lack almost any form of cultural or public infrastructure. This contrasts with the governments' claims for creating self-contained communities. The provision of cultural buildings, when embedded in social and cultural life, can be an essential mechanism to shape a collective urban character and institute an urban imaginary. This study uses the framework of Kaika (2011) on urban imaginaries as an analytical structure to interpret the production of aesthetic symbols, based on Castoriadis' (1987) account of the imaginary institution of society. The importance of such civic infrastructure has been largely overlooked in the evaluation of existing new towns and the plans for future urban extensions. This, too, should be considered as a right to the City.

Periodicals of Engineering and Natural Sciences (PEN), 2021

The article examines the history of the development of ancient theatre architecture in the context of the environment, which forms a territory that acquires the status of a cultural landscape. The material of antiquity is interpreted in the aspect of the evolution of the formation of theatrical buildings, ranging from ancient Greek to ancient Roman, which, despite the ruins, amaze with their large-scale and untouched architecture. An attempt was made to systematize valuable evidence of the past in the environment: material (theatre architecture) and intangible (theatre art), since the theatre lives only when it is performed and theatrical architecture remains for posterity. Their relationship in space and time was considered. The research methods (descriptions of the studied phenomena, the method of field observation, the method of problem-historical analysis) made it possible to focus on the specifics of the arrangement of theatre buildings located in open spaces, representing cultural landscapesvast territories of co-creation of human and nature. Throughout the eras, the architecture of a theatre, intended for spectacular performances, associated with the environmental factor and acting has undergone a transformation, just as the theatrical art itself has changed, sometimes within the same performance, on the same stage. Fragments of the lost cultural experience today are open systems in the associative, semantic, historical aspects, as well as in terms of the reconstruction of objects. They form an attractive and popular place that goes beyond city-planning conditions, being a significant public space. The composition of the construction of theatres and the principles of shaping that took shape in the antique period had a great influence on their subsequent development and remained in modern design solutions. In this context, this experience of interpreting architectural monuments related to theatrical art is of great cultural and educational significance, not only in the sense of reconstructing a lost layer of cultural heritage but, to a greater extent, in the form of modelling a new vision of the architectural culture of the new world that is being formed today.

Architecture does not just mean building objects but represents culture and relations among people – users, investors, builders, managers, as well as relations in society and in space. Vernacular and classical architecture are both important parts of the built environment and show relationships within the culture of every society. All changes in the cultural landscape are a result of changes in society, and its influence can be clearly seen through history. Architecture's existence depends on the materials, its use and other circumstances. Not only do materials decay through normal use and aging, other physical factors, both natural and man made (mostly military interventions and changes) are important for it. Questions of existence, restoration and use today – in changed circumstances – are important and very problematic. Presentation can be more or less effective: from nothing (only recognized locally and neglected, not respected), architecture in its original use, to presenti...