< Previous10 Sightline Autumn 2019 backstage of the building without resorting to a lift. Audience members either step down to their seats in the front stalls or step up at the rear stalls.The signature roof light was introduced by WWM to connect with the outside, and what was an open stable yard, and washes daylight across the original ironstone walls. Practically, it also supports daytime use, and has already been used within the design of one production (2019’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream).At the heart of WWM’s designs were the ambition to maintain the greatest possible reading of the existing architecture, and therefore the original Great Tew ironstone walls have been left exposed, together with original doors and windows. This is complemented by a palette of new timber throughout the space. The ceiling of Douglas fir, has been grit-blasted and bleached with lye to create a texture and colour close to that of the stone. The balcony front and other internal woodwork are also stained darker – reinforcing a single room shared by audience and performers.Technical detailsDuring the opera season, a series of lighting and scenery trusses are suspended over the stage, the hinged proscenium panels create a frame to the stage action and contain the side lighting booms. The front-of-house has permanent lighting bars at the ceiling level and on the balcony front, as well as high side positions on the walls. With most of the lighting and sound equipment hired in on a seasonal basis by the opera company, SSV designed and specified a dedicated lighting, sound and AV cable infrastructure capable of supporting the specialist requirements of the production systems while providing a good degree of future proofing for expansion and changing technology. The network of tie-lines and flexible patching system allows plug-in points for lighting and sound equipment throughout the auditorium and stage to suit the design of each production or event. The infrastructure, including the facilities panels, are hidden from view behind timber panels.The loading capacity of the roof for rigging and the bearing capacity of the ancient stable walls have been carefully balanced to enable theatre, opera and film to be shown in the auditorium.AcousticsThe horseshoe-shaped balcony not only increases the overall intensity and impact of the audience and performer experience, but also provides acoustical reflections to assist clarity and immersion. The stalls’ floor geometry creates a well near the stage which helps the performers’ sound reach the back wall, providing a human link between the audience and performers, and maximises the acoustical resonance of the theatre.With timber battens in a lattice pattern of relief on the balcony fronts, sound is appropriately scattered, and by careful attention to the thickness and detailing of the timber, acoustical resonance and warmth convey the subtle musical nuances of the artists. The side balconies are particularly helpful in giving acoustical support as the sound bounces off the balconies’ undersides and front panels sending it back to the audience and the performers, allowing the singers to balance their sound with that of the orchestra. The orchestra pit shape,carefully planned to serve NHO’s various needs, and the timber finish develop a warm instrumental sound while allowing the singers to shine. Large enough to fit an orchestra of 50 for heavier orchestral fare, it can be reduced in size to accommodate 25-30 musicians and raised by means of platforms for lighter Baroque or Classical operas. This orchestra pit gives the strings and winds, in particular, a greater presence and bloom in the hall than was the case in the old canvas theatre.Along with acoustical enhancements and Sightline Autumn 2019 11 fixed solutions, sound isolation is vital to the quality and merit of the hall. The layered timber enclosure, along with a green roof, the double-glazed skylight, and baffled air vents, keep out the noise of wind, rain and the occasional aircraft that have been part of previous NHO seasons. The air handling plant is situated outside the building for cost efficiency and to assist with noise control.Anne Minors, Director of Sound Space Vision summarises the project as follows: “The dramatic setting of Nevill Holt and beautiful gardens form the first act of the opera-going experience, the stable building itself closes down and opens up again to nature with a skylight above and doors back and front. Within the auditorium, constraints of area and height can be a virtue – to concentrate the mind on what is essential for performance, so that young singers enjoy their experience on stage, their sound clearly balanced with musicians in the pit, and the audience feeling at one with them.” And Chris Watson, of Witherford Watson Mann Architects, added: “It’s been a huge pleasure to make a theatre for the young musicians and actors of Nevill Holt Opera, for the thirty-four academy schools in their education network, and for the opera festival’s public. Our design builds on the ideas of transformation that we’ve developed over a decade and a half of projects, and brings to fruition many years of thinking about performance space. It’s the result of a very close collaboration with the artistic and technical team at Nevill Holt, and with a really committed consultant team. It was quite an unusual challenge to work within the rather grand stable yard: we had to judge every addition on its merits, to fit the theatre within the ironstone walls, stone slate roofs and historic doorways. This stable-theatre has a Project teamClient Nevill Holt OperaArchitect Witherford Watson Mann ArchitectsStructural engineer Price & MyersM&E consultant Max FordhamQuantity surveyor GleedsTheatre and Acoustics consultant Sound Space VisionHeritage Architects Julian HarrapCDM co-ordinator David EagleApproved building inspector OculusMain contractor Messengerstrange in-between quality, half-interior half-exterior – which feels entirely fitting for the imaginative space of opera.”Many thanks to Chris Watson, Witherford Watson Mann Architects, and Anne Minors, Sound Space Vision, for their input to this article.Photos on Page 8 & 10 by Hélène Binet, courtesy of Witherford Watson MannPhoto courtesy of Sound Space Vision12 Sightline Autumn 2019 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2019/OISTAT Congress and ForumJohn Faulkner reportsIn an optimistic moment I had promised myself time with the Prague of Mozart – city of the premiere of Don Giovanni – the haunts of the Good Soldier Schweyk: The Chalice, The Three Ostriches, or the community orchard below the Strahov Monastery. Prague, city of Svoboda, Janáček, Václav Havel…I have been visiting PQ since the mid-1970s when Prague was a key point in the Soviet bloc, a cultural freeport, birthplace of OISTAT (International Organisation of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians), before the Berlin Wall came down and the ‘Iron Curtain’ lifted.Prague today is a tourist-packed, spruced-up world capital. No more sagging tiles and pigeon haunted dormers; now, manicured shopping streets and tourist boutiques in the narrow streets, off Wenceslas Square where the Prague Spring faltered before Soviet tanks in ’68 and in 1989 key-jangling crowds ushered in the Velvet Revolution.The Velvet Revolution set OISTAT on the move, first to Amsterdam then (2006) to Taiwan, with a realignment in the relationship with PQ.PQ has returned to the Industrial Palace at Vystaviste, elegant Art Nouveau, built for the 1891 World Exhibition, with its glass-domed clock tower sitting on a spiral staircase like a giant spring. It was the destruction by fire of the left hand hall (2008) that made PQ nomadic (2011 and 2015).PQ rethought its mission, coinciding with an international debate about the relationship of scenography (the then current term) to performance and to theatres (again, the then current term). This is not the place to explore those intense arguments, but they are both fundamental, and emotive for those on one side or the other. PQ2019 was the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, emphasising the collaborative contribution of designers and the variety of environments in which they now practice their craft.Cross the plaza , already busy with physical theatre, and in the main hall the first impact is a solid red scenic wall, against the soaring windows, flanking the centennial arch from the 1891 World Exhibition, bearing the PQ leitmotiv (in Czech and English): Imagination – Transformation – Memory. As I arrived, Tim Foster was being photographed beneath it, on a podium, in shorts and stylish summer shirt (the weather was baking hot) for his later appearance as Awards juror … a true PQ moment.New artistic director Marketa Fantova (within a 24-strong team, general direction and curators) has led PQ further along the route pioneered by Sodje Lotker and Jaroslav Malina, to include the visual and other arts. Individual countries still include model boxes and designs, but the overall feel is one of installations, many with interactive or immersive elements requiring VR/QR reader or headphones. More buildings allowed PQ to explore, in 600 events, the whole gamut of ‘Imagination – Transformation – Memory’ explicating design from concept, then process, and execution through performance, and ending in the physical and emotional trace left behind .Every hour brought new site specific events on the 80-acre exhibition grounds, the nearby Studio Alta, or twenty or more sites around Prague from the relative formality of the DAMU conservatoire, through street events in Jan Palach Square, to the Praha-Žižkov freight terminal. Among those performances: ENGI-MON, exuberant Japanese Chindon marching performance, from the stage erected over the Křižik Light Fountain to a wild sunset finale on a pavilion roof; at DISK Theatre: KIWI Helena Machova’s complex physical theatre piece on difference and extinction; Eric Rose and Anton deGroot’s design-led workshop, exploring identity, sexual relationships and exclusion; at Studio Alta: Meduza, physical theatre inspired by the Géricault painting, with intricate interlocking scenic boards, dissecting isolation and co-operation; LEGOrhythm (tYhle/Marie Gourdain) atarting from Olympic sport and 1930s mass gymnastics, questioning LEGORhythm finaleSightline Autumn 2019 13 the nature of performance, form, formation, rhythm, duty, order, convention, compliance, conformity and subsequently freedom. The production breaks out of the theatre foyer, re-staging the slow-motion race from Chariots of Fire, across a busy road and tram track and ending in a stadium display, complete with mobile sound system, on the Palace Plaza. Unforgettable!The political edge of that performance was echoed in the Exhibition of Countries and Regions. Challenged to take a wider dynamic view of design in performance some curators opted to reflect the wider political or societal climate: Brazil, Catalonia, Cyprus, Czech Republic – CAMPQ, Republic of North Macedonia.Indeed the new Republic of North Macedonia won the apex prize, the Golden Triga for an installation/performance charting the revival of a decaying Skopje cinema into a cultural focus of social renewal – the ‘performative agonistic community’– their hard-line political vocabulary. Their vigour and dedication to the project was matched by their technical skill in creating a solid scenic wall, some four metres long and three high by 60cm. deep, on a horizontal track and pivoting on its central horizontal axis. To raise the wall the requisite 20-25cm they welded a standard winder jack to each slider chariot at around 1.5m, and attached the horizontal axle bearing to the jack’s flange. Two skilled operators (also constructors , pleased to be congratulated) co-ordinated by sight only. The whole had free rotation and up- and downstage movement to serve its various functions: cinema screen, plotting table, stage (manual insertion of legs each side). Simple, cost effective and technically ingenious.Even the Golden Triga has evolved. The original, modelled on the three-horse chariot atop the National Opera, was prestigious, but a heavy, domineering lump of bronze. The prize symbol is still a horse, at full gallop, but in solid acrylic, clear or in vibrant colours, and the Triga three harnessed by a G-clamp – what could be more technical? Wherever the original has been retired, I have no wish to see it again, although the UK has won it twice.Three Country exhibitions gained prizes: Catalonia, Prospective Actions, a participative multimedia installation, highlighting social conflicts between police control and new use of public space; Hungary, Infinite Dune, an environment with multiple viewers standing on stools with their heads in an upper ring in which mirrors, silvered/textured floor and ceiling, and music evoke collective solitude; and France Microcosm/Philippe Quesne: an insular space, a kind of imaginary utopic or dystopic society.The UK reflected the Transformation motif in a circular meeting space whose skeletal walls showed many aspects of design, most successful when people exchanged ideas at the central table.The Latvian installation, a rotating room where the spectator lay and contemplated the ceiling on top of a gigantic practical rotating music box – Here Time becomes Space – took the Best Curatorial Concept, while Chile’s Minor Monsters, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of theatre crafts and equipment creating a scenic museum of the drama of the fauna of Chile – won them Collaborative Realisation of an Exhibit.Three very different top Student exhibits: Georgia’s Medea/Media, a long historical perspective on the role of personal memory between reality and virtuality. In Kolo, Finland enveloped the spectator in something between a womb and a boulder, testing the interactions between the senses and safe space. Taiwan’s offering was totally theatrical: the participant enters via a cubicle, finding a character, costume and electronic script, then enters the set to participate with whoever enters from another cubicle. High energy and high concept.Three awarded student exhibitions for Imagination; two themes. Italy’s The Imaginative Society’s The Prague Experiment North Macedonia in Action14 Sightline Autumn 2019 plays on the immersive boom and the centrality of human contact; while the Czech students’ Prague is not Czechia’ created a scenic tourist information booth so realistic it took in some of the jury. The Philippines Passing Through Lines and Borders, political again, a convincing immersive booth, this one for immigration interrogation.The UK’s Future Utopias Imaginarium being linked to Staging Places Studio in the Exhibition of countries and regions may have blurred the focus of an otherwise enterprising student/ early career curatorial team collaboration.Donatella Barbieri (UK) received the award for Best Publication for Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the BodyThe public saw over forty designs in the Performance Space Design Exhibition, not entirely satisfactorily, on screens mounted in a number of box vans parked in the main hall.Four prize entries: DOX+, modifications to a brownfield site Prague arts centre. Minimal intervention and finishes provide a multi-purpose auditorium with acoustics enhanced by rotating ceiling panels; Soundforms, UK, a striking mobile soundshell with a beautiful sculptural form, close collaboration between conductor and design team providing excellent acoustics for performers and audiences; Levitating Theatre, a small-scale, playful project in the landscape for performance or domestic gatherings at table. The organic platform shape flows between existing trees, appearing to float on mirrored skirting; Theatre in the Wild, a temporary performance space in a rural Hong Kong landscape threatened by urban development, from reclaimed and recyclable materials. Elegantly minimal and sensitive: terrestrial politics in dialogue with culture, nature, local residents, invited artists and visitors from the city.Even here international politics intervened. During the awarding, there was a vigorous intervention from the floor on behalf of the first protests in Hong Kong.Alongside exhibitions, and in line with the Transformation motif, a triple programme of talks, master classes and workshops ensured the sharing of skills, both practical and theoretical. The main hall often became a vast hands-on workshop, sometimes culminating in a performance, while in the two sports halls 36Q°, curated by Marketa Fantova and Romain Tardy, explored the inter-relation of space, light and sound at the edges of practice and into the realm of extended (virtual, augmented and mixed) reality both for the immersive visitor and the professional workshop participant. But what of Memory? Prague is rich in memories, and in statues themselves solidified memory. The Lapidarium, an atmospherically 36Q°Sightline Autumn 2019 15 he only you need16 Sightline Autumn 2019 lit repository of many of Prague’s displaced memories in stone housed Fragments to celebrate what remains of a production and its long-term effect. Each country chose one work, in any branch of performance design, of a ‘Living Legend’.The twenty-six exhibits could have repaid a day or more of study: Andy Bargilly’s (Cyprus) Seven Against Thebes; Tumurkhuyag Burmaa’s (Mongolia) Shape of the Basement Ming Cho Lee’s (USA) Boris Godunov; Josef Ciller’s (Slovakia) The Bridge on the Ridge; Xue Dianjie’s (China) The Life of Galileo; Jean-Claude De Bemels’s (Belgium) The Mission…From the UK and Wales were Paul Brown, a version of the VR installation of his studio and Pamela Howard’s Charlotte- a Tri-coloured Play with Music. In her talk Pamela emphasised telling stories of displacement and dispossession and her own commitment to making art without borders.There was a further Welsh and statue connection in the joyous Glutz, a street theatre giant puppet play staged by RWCMD students in Jan Palach Square and on the steps of the Philharmonie. The statues of Prague come alive (including the Commendatore from Don Giovanni) causing trouble for an old recluse under pressure from the Prague mafia (the crowds loved the squat mafia boss and his towering heavies) but with the help of Mozart, a flaky tour guide, an indomitable teenage girl and a giant Welsh dragon all is set to rights. Exemplary street theatre, direct, responsive to the audience but always with the end in sight – and, of course the trademark excellent RWCMD puppets.Surrounded by all these riches, it was hard to break off for the small Congress of OISTAT : a forum on OISTAT The Next Fifty Years, Statutes on consecutive terms of office to amend, new members to welcome (Israel and Norway) and meetings of commissions, but your correspondent is the ABTT/UK voting delegate, and duly took part and completed the business.Summing up PQ2019 is a little like summing up the Edinburgh Fringe: when you’re there you can hardly believe so much is happening and you are seeing so much; when it’s over you have a hard job believing it all happened, that you saw so much, missed so much, saw so many old friends and made so many new ones. Just so with PQ. The revitalisation through creative and astute curation was palpable. The balance between retaining the established core and extending and reaching out to the new areas where pioneering performance and space designers are working was finely judged, although it will have left some longer attending participants questioning their boundaries. The diverse performance programme at Vystaviste and throughout the city enriched the experience and increased opportunities for those vital interactions where skills are honed and transferred .And what of my unrealised dreams of Mozart, Schweyk, Kafka, The Three Ostriches and that orchard … well there is another PQ in 2023!VR everywhereAll photos courtesy of John FaulknerRWCMD street theatreSightline Autumn 2019 17 In 2015, Gus Christie, Executive Chairman of Glyndebourne (“No Ordinary Opera” – 2019’s strapline), looked at his theatre’s workshop facilities and decided that something needed to be done if he wanted to keep the many long-established crafts people who sustain the house’s legendary standards for sets, costumes, props, wigs and make-up. So he gathered the appropriate managers and set to work to write a brief to replace their workshops with the Production Hub, a new building to bring everyone under one roof. In parallel with defining the brief, the search began for an architect to lead the design team and the choice, reached by competition, was Nicholas Hare Architects a long established firm with a strong record of building for the arts. Perhaps the most obvious recommendation for this practice was its work on the Royal Opera House Production Workshop and Costume Centre at Purfleet.The site for the Production Hub is well placed – next to the site road for easy access, immediately opposite the Stage Door and adjacent to the Messel Building, previously the costume department and now a costume store linked to the new building. The site was formerly occupied by a 1980s block, housing the props department and some practice rooms, and a tennis court. The Production Hub, facing down the valley to the east, is slightly cut into the fall of the land and has areas of parking to the east and west and easy access to all sides for delivery, escape and maintenance.A central part of Glyndebourne’s history has been the constant development of its buildings – the original opera house was expanded incrementally from 300 seats in 1934 to 845 in 1977 and over those years many other buildings were either converted or built to house audience and production facilities. All these projects have been under the close management of the Christie of the day – there are photographs of founder John Christie, screwdriver in hand, apparently installing a lighting control in 1934. Twenty five years ago this year, John’s son George opened the new opera house to great acclaim and now his grandson Gus has built again.Another distinctive characteristic of Glyndebourne Opera House and its Festival is its independence from the public purse and all the scrutiny that comes with it. A real advantage of this is that the management has greater independence of action, shorter lines of communication and opportunities for faster decision making. This is combined with a practice of closely involving end-users in building design decisions – a recipe for producing short development times, tremendous commitment from the staff and a fit-for-purpose outcome. A downside to not pursuing the Government’s shilling is of course that Glyndebourne has to fundraise relentlessly from the private, charitable and corporate sectors. It has an enormously successful record at this, exemplified by the fact that even deceased benefactors keep giving – a substantial proportion of the cost of Glyndebourne builds again Richard York visits the new Production HubMain approach18 Sightline Autumn 2019 the Production Hub came from legacies!The exterior of the building is influenced by a traditional Sussex timber-clad barn. It is two storeys high and is built in three bays each with a steep pitched roof. Each bay presents an imposing gable at the east and west ends with the central bay to the east fully glazed from the first floor up. Windows are otherwise quite modest in scale but liberally distributed to provide the interior with ample daylight. The building has been constructed on similar principles to a traditional barn. A steel frame was erected on a concrete slab to provide the internal and external load-bearing structure. The external frame was infilled with a lightweight metal framing system and lined on the inside with cement particle board, thus providing a backing for a vapour control barrier and a thick layer of mineral wool insulation. This in turn was covered with a breather membrane secured by timber battens which supports the vertical timber cladding made from Accoya – fast-growing softwood treated by acetylation, an eco-friendly industrial process (akin to pickling with vinegar) which gives it many of the characteristics of tropical hardwoods – rot resistance, stability, hardness and density. Factory applied black paint creates an impressive exterior in contrast to the Opera House and the adjacent woodland (currently being replanted following ash dieback). The three roofs, with ample skylights, are covered in black standing-seam aluminium, laid on mineral wall insulation supported by 80mm thick cross laminated timber panels laid on the steel frame. The panels were prefabricated and came with apertures pre-cut. The underside provides the soffit to the building and is coated with a white coating designed to inhibit the spread of flame in event of fire. The roof structure and some of the internal structural steel work is revealed and is rather more elegantly detailed than the galvanised steel of a modern barn.The heart of the building is a central area for assembling large props and small pieces of scenery. It is two storeys high (about 12 metres to the ridge of the roof) and about 11 metres wide x 17 metres long with a margin all round overhung by the first floor. Above are two beams each with two hoists. The floor is polished concrete with underfloor heating, the walls are substantial for noise containment and are painted white. The assembly area gives access to a series of enclosed workshops which provide facilities for working in wood, metal, plastics, fabric and paint and are equipped as necessary with tools, dust extraction and fume extraction. Other spaces provide for storage, administration and staff facilities. Internal double glazed windows provide light, views and a high level of sound separation. The external walls have a total of three substantial doors for goods access, one into the store, one into the paint shop and one direct to the assembly area. Except where processes demand otherwise, the spaces are naturally ventilated. A neat point is that the columns holding up the first floor are inset from the corners thus maximising manoeuvrability for large pieces. It was quite surprising to find that the building has no sprinkler system but the architect explained that the timber components are all treated against spread of flame, the steel structure is treated with intumescent paint, the doors between areas are steel, escape routes are generous and the building is protected by a state-of-the art fire detection system.Glyndebourne does not seriously make or Ground floor planSightline Autumn 2019 19 Design TeamArchitect Nicholas Hare ArchitectsStructural Engineer Integral Engineering DesignM&E Consultant Max FordhamQuantity Surveyor F T AllenAcoustic Consultant Max FordhamApproved Building Inspector J M PartnershipBREEAM Consultant Eight AssociatesEcologist Urban Edge Environmental ConsultingContractors Main Contractor Sunninghill Construction Co LimitedSubcontractorsPrecast Concrete Longley ConcreteCross Laminated Timber Glulam SolutionsWindows West Coast WindowsMetal Roof Doric IndustrialMetal Doors Hormann UKElectrical MSE GroupHeating Tugwell Heatingphotos: © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. photos by Graham Carlowdrawing courtesy of Nicholas Hare Architectspaint scenery on site since it has never had scenic workshops. However these new facilities open the possibility of building and painting more scenery in-house – indeed there was, in the woodwork shop, a substantial staircase and landing under construction. This opens up the possibility of taking in outside work, thus creating new employment opportunities while providing another income stream.The upper floor houses the softer skills. The north and west sides provide corridors separated by double glazing from the assembly space. These give access to a double height rehearsal room with barre and mirrors and a group of three practice rooms (both formerly housed in the old building), staff facilities, make-up workroom, wigs workroom, store room for fabric, a trio of fitting rooms and a base for visiting designers. On the south side a group of rooms provide cutting, making and support for the costume department occupying an area of about 12 metres x 25 metres, two stories high and flooded by light from windows and skylights. The east side, behind the glazed gable, houses that most English of facilities, the Tea Room. This provides all those who work in the building with a common room, an opportunity to swap news, ideas and gossip and a stunning view across the opera house, the gardens and the meadows beyond. The inside wall is glazed for a view into the assembly area and to maximise daylight.It is worth noting the windows to the first floor workrooms are a considered arrangement of opening lights and fixed lights with louvres to provide maximum flexibility for daylight and natural ventilation. The only air-conditioned space is the rehearsal room – the roof void above the make-up and wig rooms (which are single storey by choice) provides a plant room for the building and necessitates an external spiral escape stair at the west end. Heat is provided by a ground source heat pump powered by Glyndebourne’s wind turbine, which for seven years has provided 103% of the whole site’s electricity. This building, like all those on Glyndebourne estate, is specified to the highest environmental standards.This appears to be an immaculately conceived and executed project. The design team was appointed in January 2017, work on building started in January 2018 and was completed thirteen months later, on time and on budget at £6.5 million – a lot of building for an all up project cost in the order of £2500 per square metre (presumably the site came free except for preparation costs). The point has already been made that the whole cost was met by fund raising.The next major project at Glyndebourne is one that should be very dear to readers of Sightline – the renewal of the opera house’s technical installations. Now at their quarter century, age and technology’s march need to be addressed. This is a similar financial scale and the work will be phased over a number of years in order to avoid the impact of closures. Watch this space in about 2025!The author thanks the team at Glyndebourne for their hospitality and Carol King and Juliette Sacher of Nicholas Hare Architects for their help with this article – the errors are all his own.Rehearsal roomNext >