Huntington Theater
Boston, MA
Prof. Robert Cowherd, Spring 2008
Project Description
The site, adjacent to the existing theater, is across Huntington Avenue from Symphony Hall. The addition will provide the innovative programs of the Huntington Theater with a new black box theater for larger scaled, flexible performance types as well as a related Theatrical Media Research Center, to expand the institution’s teaching of and experimentation with digital technologies.
There are the two interconnected performance spaces inside, separated by a soaring atrium and foyer space. Using light modulating skylights to illuminate the interior during the day and high-intensity lights in the evenings, the colored walls refract a subdued lighting effect, which serves as a wayfinding device. The stairs and foyer spaces direct visitors to the public gathering spaces. The back-of-the-house program is concealed, while the public atrium space juxtaposes this formal language with its repetition of planar walls floating above the atrium space, creating a porous obstruction. As patrons of the arts circulate horizontally and vertically through the planar walls, they become an object, as if they were the performer, being viewed by audience above and below.
