Bill Connor wrote: "But because the design team has done a
theatre and "has not heard any complaints" - an all too often claim and defense of past work I've heard over 35 years - doesn't make them wizards of
theatre planning either."
My experience is that the architect asks the Superintendent or Principal what they want, rather than asking the Fine Arts Department. Two entirely different answers . . .
What comes next is the tour of the nearby
venue, typically another High School, that is also awful beyond words, where the one Superintendent or Principal asks the other Superintendent or Principal about how they like their
theatre. They are always going to save
face and tell anyone that will listen that it is the greatest thing this side of Carnegie
Hall. If they would only ask the teachers they would get an ear full . . .
Our collective challenge is to get the owners and design teams to realize they don't know squat about theatres, and any
theatre they have done in the past is probably rife with concept errors, execution errors, and operational problems. '
Cookie cutter' designs are troublesome to
address as they have been 'validated' by their mere existence. Explaining to someone that just because they have a
theatre doesn't make it a good
theatre is hard for them to hear and acknowledge. Tact helps, but it is still bad news, and they don't want to hear it.
'Educational facility pairity' is another problem. They built a
theatre in 2002 that was based on a bad 1990 design, then they want a new one designed in 2018 for completion in 2020, but it "can't be any better than the old one because it wouldn't be fair to the other school". My tax dollars going to waste . . .
Bill Connor mentioned the aledged funding pairity between athletics and fine arts in Texas. Living and working here it is so funny to see the local interpretations of that. One school built a huge new football stadium, and under the bleachers they constructed a dried-in practice space for the cheer leaders and flag team to rehearse in. The signage on the side of the stadium facing the
road reads (names have been changed): "John Q Smith Athletic and Fine Arts Complex". Other battles I've fought include the cost of a sprung
stage floor (1000-1500 sq. ft.) for a black-box
theatre vs. the cost of all the hundreds of acres of groomed athletic fields, practice gyms, and weight rooms . . .
Educating owners and architects is a tedious part of our work, but none-the-less necessary. I sometimes feel like I expend all of my design efforts (budget) just stopping them from making mistakes. It would be amazing to actually get to design the 'hey, wouldn't it be cool if we did this?' stuff. While in college I signed-up for classes in Lighting Design and Architectural
Acoustics in the Architecture Department -- what I took away from the classes was this:
- The class was an optional graduate level elective, so most students were never exposed to the concepts
- The class was only six weeks and met once a week, so not much time to actually learn anything
- None of the class information discussed hiring experts, it all implied you could 'do it yourself'
- None of it mentioned the applicability to performance / presentation spaces
Other Architecture Schools may be different, but the idea that an Architecture Student should be forcefully exposed to these ideas (and more) by making them mandatory is a great idea.
As to the idea of writing books and making videos, I'm not too much of a fan of that. There are many books on the subject out there (mostly woefully out-dated, particularly with regard to the technology (sound, lights, rigging), and the labor cost of creating watchable accurate informative unbiased videos is more than any of us can bear. Get to know your independent consultants, push the idea of having them involved in your projects - the facility will be better for it.
Peter Scheu - Yeah for Massachusetts! - We need to figure-out how to make that happen in all states!