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Architects design for the theater, opera, and dance
David Rockwell recently made Broadway history as the first architect to be nominated for a Tony Award, for the whimsical 1960s-inspired sets he designed for the musical Hairspray. Though Hairspray swept the awards show, Rockwell's sets didn't win the architect a Tony of his own. Still, his high-profile nomination highlights the theatrical renaissance of sorts that has a growing number of well-known architects designing sets for drama, opera, and dance. Recent works by Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, and Jean Nouvel show what happens when producers and directors look beyond the proscenium for design ideas.
Although the stage is inherently spatial and suited to the architect's eye, there are fundamental differences between architecture and sets. "In theater, everything is built to disappear," notes Daniel Libeskind, whose opera set designs have graced the stages of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and the Saarlandisches Staatstheater in Saarbruken, Germany. "Theater may not be made to last, but it is incredibly powerful. It creates memory and emotions that remain in the minds and hearts of the audience. This is what architecture and theater have in common. The effect is the same, only the means are different." Frank Gehry, who recently designed his first opera sets, agrees. As he told The Washington Post, "I think it's an area that's ripe for architects to play in, but it's a different thing, it's temporary."
Rockwell, who goes to the theater two to three times a week, sketchbook in hand, disagrees with the notion that the issue of temporariness marks the primary distinction between architecture and stage design. "Regardless of what architects say or think, architecture isn't permanent, as we saw in New York on 9/11. Set design isn't just about making pretty pictures on the stage; it's about making sets move and change and fly. Even the most aerodynamic architecture doesn't actually fly."
Set design is rife with technical requirements unfamiliar to most architects. Craig Webb, a partner in Gehry's firm, was associate designer and in charge of sets created by Gehry for an opera performance at the new Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts he designed at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Webb thought he knew...