Theater, Cultural and Congress Center

The unpretentious theater building from the 1960s was comprehensively refurbished and extended without infringing on its architectural identity. The new building reinterprets and continues the postwar modernism and key stylistic elements of the older building. These include the theater’s balcony-like cantilevered outside galleries on the upper floor, the generous glass facade of the foyer at ground floor level, and the cube-like composition with the theater hall inserted as a cylindrical shape. The defining theme of the old building, that of the circular hall inserted in the cube, is adopted and replicated in the new building. Consequently, in both buildings the main spaces can be seen from both inside and outside; on the inside of the old theater and festival building, the circular auditorium within is discernible as an enclosed space that is surrounded by the foyer, which is open to the outside. In the new cultural and conference center, the hall, with its square floor plan, has been placed within the circular foyer. On the inside, the cubelike hall is enclosed by curved walls; from the outside, the square shape with its glazed clerestory is visible as a protruding structure.