Event-Space: Theatre Architecture and the Historical Avant-Garde

402 Pages·2018·80.332 MB·English

by  Dorita Hannah

Event-Space
As the symbolists, constructivists and surrealists of the historical avant-
garde began to abandon traditional theatre spaces and embrace the
more contingent locations of the theatrical and political ‘event,’ the built
environment of a performance became not only part of the event, but an
event in and of itself.
Event-Space radically re-evaluates the avant-garde’s championing of
nonrepresentational spaces, drawing on the specific fields of performance
studies and architectural studies to establish a theory of ‘performative
architecture.’
‘Event’ was of immense significance to theatre’s revolutionary agenda,
resisting realism and naturalism – and, simultaneously, the monumentality
of architecture itself. Event-Space analyzes a number of spatiotemporal
models central to that revolution, both illuminating the history of
avant-garde performance and inspiring contemporary approaches to
performance space.
Dorita Hannah works across the spatial, visual and performing arts as
a scholar and design practitioner specializing in theatre architecture and
performance design. She is a Professor affiliated with the University of
Auckland (New Zealand), University of Tasmania (Australia) and Aalto
University (Finland).

Event-Space
Theatre Architecture and the
Historical Avant-Garde
Dorita Hannah
with original photography by Marc Goodwin
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Millard Meiss
Publication Fund of the College Art Association.
First edition published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Dorita Hannah
The right of Dorita Hannah to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hannah, Dorita, author.
Title: Event-Space : theatre architecture and the historical
avant–garde / Dorita Hannah.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017047491 | ISBN 9780415832168 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780415832175 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780203491553 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Experimental theater—History—20th century. |
Theater architecture. | Experimental drama—20th century—
History and criticism.
Classification: LCC PN2193.E86 H36 2018 | DDC 792.02/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017047491
ISBN: 9780415832168 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780415832175 (pbk)
ISBN: 9780203491553 (ebk)
Typeset in Minion Pro
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To my beloved parents, John (1934–2006) and Catherine Hannah.

Contents
List of figures ix
Preface: toward a theory of ‘spacing’ through avant-garde action xv
Acknowledgements xxiii
Introduction: event-space: a performance model
for architecture 1
Architecture as event 5
Event-space: a useful paradigm in motion 9
Space (becoming-performance of architecture) 11
Event (becoming-architecture of performance) 18
(Re)Birth of the will-to-destruction 28
Avant-gardism and modernism 35
1 Disciplining the bourgeois glory machine 53
“Our provisional theatre at Bayreuth” 53
The baroque model and post-revolutionary performativity 59
Garnier’s architecture as mise-en-scène 66
The glory machine 75
The case of Bayreuth 78
A new public 83
The invisible theatre 90
2 Absolute space: universal landscapes 101
“The Beginning . . . The Birth . . .” 101
Absolute stage space 105
Symbolist “Theatre of the Mind” 107
Dancing architectures 112
Duncan’s temple 116
Spatial rhythm and universal landscapes 121
Adolphe Appia 124
viii CONTENTS
Architecture as temple-laboratory 130
Hellerau 133
Resisting the black void 143
The new monumentality of absolute space 146
3 Abstract space: toward an architecture of alienation 161
The “Troubled Art”: avant-gardism divided 167
City as a “Montage of Attractions” 170
Stage space – Space Stage 175
Bauhaus festivities 180
Total Theatre: the “Great Stage Machine” 194
Architectures of alienation 199
Ghost in the machine 213
4 Abject space: toward an architecture of cruelty 233
Violence takes centre stage 234
Spatial violence 237
Bravo! And Boom, Boom! 242
Abjection: eROTic object 247
Palace of Culture 250
Enter Artaud (Flinging Bombs) 254
An architecture against architecture 256
A site of recovery 257
Dis-eased body 261
Ex-ploding space 266
De-centring architecture 281
Cruel machine 298
Conclusion: making architecture tremble 309
Nietzsche’s architect(ure) 313
Building Babel 319
Bibliography 333
Index 357
Figures
0.1 Ancient Greek amphitheatre: diagrammatic plan showing
component parts referred to throughout this book 30
1.1 Margravial Opera House, Bayreuth (1748): engraving of the
1872 inauguration of Wagner’s Opera House in Bayreuth,
with Richard Wagner himself conducting 58
1.2 Charles Garnier’s Opera House, Paris (1861–1875):
painting of L’escalier de l’Opéra Garnier by Louis Béroud
(1877) 68
1.3a Opéra Garnier, Paris: grand foyer (Photo: Marc Goodwin) 70
1.3b Opéra Garnier, Paris: grand staircase (Photo: Marc Goodwin) 71
1.4 First performance of Wagner’s opera, Rheingold, at
Bayreuth Festspielhaus (1876) 79
1.5a Wagner Festspielhaus, Bayreuth: orchestra pit
(Photo: Marc Goodwin) 80
1.5b Wagner Festspielhaus, Bayreuth: auditorium
(Photo: Marc Goodwin) 81
2.1 Isadora Duncan dancing in the Acropolis’s Theatre of
Dionysus, Athens, taken by Raymond Duncan (1903) 114
2.2 Diagram from Sebastiano Serlio’s Architettura (1545), with
annotation by Edward Gordon Craig (1907) 115
2.3 Etching from Edward Gordon Craig’s Scene series (1908) 117
2.4 The unfinished walls of Kopanos, Athens (1903) 119
2.5a Edward Gordon Craig’s model for The St. Matthew Passion
(1913–1914) 124
2.5b Section through 1913 model of Edward Gordon Craig’s
proposed staging of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Drawing
by Edward Carrick 124
2.6 Adolphe Appia’s Rhythmic Spaces (1909) 126
2.7 Edward Gordon Craig’s frontispiece for The Theatre
Advancing (1921) 132