Total Theater

Total Theater, 1927

In 1927, Gropius was asked by the director Erwin Piscator, one of the most radical protagonist of modern theater to join him in developing a new type of theater. Piscator was searching for possibilities of creating  a multi functional theater building, "a machine or an apparatus" in which every contemporary option for staging play, including the use of extensive multimedia strategies, would be available to him in realizing the his vision of theater political agitation

Concept Idea
" The contemporary theater architects should set himself the aim to create a great keyboard of light and space, so objective and adaptable in character it would respond to any imaginable vision of a stage director: flexible building, capable of transforming and refreshing the mind by its spatial impact alone"

 Gropius

The theater

• reject hierarchical seating of audience
• abolish the division between stage and stall
• action on the stage must be entirely participated in by the audience

Gropius looked into the idea of the "3 Basic Stage Form"

1. Central Arena - where the plays unfold itself 3-dimensionally while spectators folds around concentrically
2. Greek Proscenium Theater - protruding platforms around which the audience is seated in a concentric half circles. the play is set up against the fixed background
3. Present Theater - the play is pulled back altogether behind the curtain

For Gropius the strongest means of the theater was to make the spectator participate in the play.The issues he had with these stages was the spatial separation of the auditorium and the stage that had  failed to draw the spectators physically into the play.



Plan
The plan of the theater was based on an elliptical floor plan to which the rectangular stage building was attached horizontally. The elliptical auditorium with its escalating rows of seats was reflected in the external form of the building. It was covered by a dome like ceiling. The 2000 seats are disposed in a form of an amphitheater.

floor plan and section

This theater provides a stage in arena form, a proscenium and a back stage, that was divided into the 3 part of the basic stage form. by incorporating 2 rotary movements.

• 1st movement is on the circular stage turning on itself
• 2nd movement is  part of the auditorium that is also circular and included the stage itself. This is when the stage was no longer at the apex of the ellipse but almost in the center recreating the old form amphitheater  (arena stage)

By rotationg, switching and sinking the auditorium floor and stage, a total and spatially dramatic experience could be created, that would integrate the audience directly onto the stage. The intention was to suspend the boundaries between the stage and the space occupied by the audience.

deep stage

proscenium stage

arena stage

Scenes are projected on 12 screens placed between the 12 main column supporting the structure.This was intended to offer unlimited staging possibilities.The intermediate space between the auditorium and the outer skin, which was separated from the interior space by the systems of support (columns) was for access and passage way

sectional perspective showing the 12 columns