Festival dell'architettura

In 1959, Greek architect Jan Despo (1903-1992) was awarded First Prize in the competition for the Athens Cultural Centre -that remained unrealized, however, with the exception of the Athens Conservatory. The circular concert, dance and conference theatre was the nodal building of an ambitious urban composition: the theatre’s stunning geometric form, distinctively composite function and ingenious structural conformation were all integrally conceived—within an essentially tense spatial diathesis.

diathesis: Greek, disposition, condition, from diatithenai, to dispose: dia-+tithenai, to place, set, arrange.

«The existence of such a space, with such a disposition of spectators, is what creates the consciousness that the city possesses a theater»[1].

Formal Diathesis. The Athens Cultural Centre’s concert, dance and convention theatre is the nodal building of Despo’s proposed composition: “In the foreground, the balanced disc of the congress centre attempts, hovering above the square, to ideologically seal the whole complex”[4].The building is designed as an amphitheatrical space of speech and music —without the usual functional demands for stage support required by an operatic theatre. Its form is a throwback to the idea behind the circular theatrical space previously designed for the city of Luleå, although not without changes: the theatre’s interior accommodates 3200 people instead of only 1000, while the diameter has been increased from 55 to 75 meters. Peripheral supports are seen on preliminary drawings—however, soon to be abandoned. The architect elaborates on what was also emerging in perspective drawings for Luleå, but which then was structurally unfeasible: the creation of “an elevated disc over a liberated plaza”, a circular foyer around a circular theatrical space, whose truncated cone is “hovering”. In analyzing the Berliner Philarmonie (1963), Despo expresses a sincere admiration[5] for the interior, but adds: “When one sees this work from the outside, disappointment follows”[6].Furthermore, “a theater with 3000 or 5000 seats is problematic per se”[7]. An amphitheatrical space of considerable size, whose interior unity – that H.Scharoun accomplishes – should also be expressed at the exterior, is ‘problematic’: namely a problem to solve. Large interior spaces in theatres designed for big audiences usually lead to bulky exteriors, closed off from their surroundings. The inherent unity of the unroofed, ancient Greek theater, integrated into a natural slope, was simultaneously an interior and exterior one. In his design for Athens, Jan Despo elevates the theatrical cavea off the ground in order to create a welcoming public space beneath, while the protected plaza functions as a liberated background for the projection of the theatre’s cantilevered, absolute form: a roofed circular theatrical cavea. Their intense formal opposition follows a demand for unity between the pre-existing setting and the built construction; not via a free sky, as in the unroofed ancient theatre, but via a free ground.

Functional Diathesis. The theatrical space hovers above the plaza, below which five supporting levels are found. Six main staircases –four at the diametrically opposed pylons and two free-standing lead to the first level of the foyer. The height from the ticket services to the level of the entrance is 15 meters, while the route of ingress is for the most part open-air. Despo detaches the disc from the ground, vigorously separating the supporting levels from the theatrical space per se. The vertical, winding route between the two is purposely prolonged and gradually unveils the building’s plasticity. The theatrical space itself consists of two auditoria of 2200 and 1000 seats respectively, which operate also autonomously. They are semi-circular, but of different inclinations in order for both to be connected to the level of the circular foyer. These two spaces are not just complementary spaces for music events. Despo’s admiration for the small double Sant’ Erasmo Theatre at Milan (1953-1954), by Carlo de Carli, where the stage disappears and the orchestra becomes dominant, fostered his vision of a unified theatrical space, where it is not so much dramatic action that dominates, but logos - speech as metrical tone - resulting in an annulment of theatre’s spectacle aspect from within.

Structural Diathesis. The ingenious structural solution is per se the solution to the problem posed by audience size. As a theatrical space of 3200 seats, with the desirable sculptural unity between its interior conformation and exterior expression, the theatre comprises simply a reinforced concrete cavea. Two diametrically opposed pylons, consisting of six collateral walls, are eccentrically placed. The truncated cone is supported by these walls, as well as by two more walls placed radially. The eccentric placement of the pylons -which are connected by a pair of twin pre-tensioned beams that span 45 meters -is dictated by the necessity to counterbalance the load of the larger theater, while the cone of the smaller theatre acts as a cantilever. The pylons extend to the full height of the building, with the beams that connect them exhibiting an escalating height. Starting from 15 meters at the resting edge of the walls, these beams end with a height of 3 meters that defines the substage. The roof is “tense supported by a ring by reinforced concrete”[8]. A pair of twin pre-tensioned beams between the pylons represents its main supporting structure while six transverse beams create an octagonal grid above the two orchestras, through which the distance to the semicircular edges of the two auditoria is spanned. The necessarily flat, tense roof is the structural reality of a unified theatrical interior and the inherent nature of its hovering exterior. Feasible, only when the space for the act renounces the stage mechanisms, when the domination of the stage act as spectacle subsides.

«What we call an invention is always self-imposed chains»[9].

Dispositio is the second canon of classical rhetoric, with the first being Inventio. These two principles are essentially interconnected. In 1923, nineteen-year-old Despo was studying at the Weimar Bauhaus, the only Greek student in the school[10]. He often visited Friedrich Nietzsche’s archive. In one of his early works, the German philosopher, referring to theatre and the metrical ancient Greek invention as “continuous self-imposed chains”, writes: “Dancing in chains: be hard on yourself, but give at the same time the impression that it is something easy, something simple”[11]. Walter Gropius was Despo’s teacher at Bauhaus. In examining the plan of the Piscator theater during the second stage of its transformation, when the circular proscenium has already revolved, one observes that the stage-orchestra lies exactly at the center of the ellipse. This inventive plan is strikingly simple, a double elliptical amphitheater and an orchestra, without box seats. Despo must have seen it firsthand in 1926[12]. In a 1963 lecture on the bourgeois theatre of the 19th century, Despo noted that its ideological composition (expressed through the class-inspired division of the auditorium between stalls and boxes) —which reflected the idea of the elites’ individuality -represents an outdated approach, no longer appropriate for our times: “The spiritual equality demanded by avant-garde theatre, creates the unified space”[13]. Despo adds: “People do not desire to see many other people sitting next to them. I have even heard foreigners wonder how it was possible that in ancient Greek theatres 15,000 people gathered, watching each other. That is exactly the point, that we cannot understand this, this necessarily points at our downstream”[14]. Even in operatic and dramatic theatres Despo never makes use of boxes, while for the ancient theatre he notes: “It isn’t true that the curvilinearity of the rows of spectators is conceived so that they are in position to see better. One is able to see better while in cinema, looking towards one direction, looking at each other’s neck -but this doesn’t create the interaction, the cooperation of the spectator with the play”[15].

For various political, economic and social reasons, neither of the circular theatrical buildings in Luleå or Athens was realized. These designs represent works of great plasticity, opposed to their urban field without any intention of organic adjustment: two austere, geometrically autonomous inventions. Their strength emerges only through an awareness of the nature of the human disposition to which they invite, its rhythmic diathesis. Only the social nature of this disposition, which does not fear great plasticity - a feeling of which may be given by the prolonged, slow winding motion around the cantilevered staircases of the Athens theater -could have permitted their realization. Like the same works of speech and music united with this human disposition during the past, the acceptance, the affirmation to their realization would demand another tempo from our times. Another rhythm, mainly a slower one: “A few actors, masks, no individual traits. Huge dimensions, therefore great plasticity, slow tempos. Scenes without action. Andante prevails”[16].

Tilemachos Andrianopoulos. Born in Athens (1974), Diploma in Architecture, National Technical University of Athens (2001), Metropolis Msc in Architecture and Urban Culture, CCCB- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (2006). Co-founder of Tense Architecture Network_TAN (2004), as a network of collaborators and works of architecture. The practice’s work includes first prize competition proposals as well as several awarded residences: Residence in Megara was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe award (2015) and Residence in Sikamino was shortlisted (2013). Member of the multidisciplinary group Greenproject (2010), member of Do.co.mo.mo (2015), Ph.D. candidate, NTUA (2012). Lecturer in the School of Architecture, NTUA (2013).

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