Calvinist complexity - theater design

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 1996 by Peter Buchanan

Herman Hertzberger's latest building, a theatre complex in Breda, reflects both his current preoccupations with form and materiality, and the wider concerns of Dutch architects faced with increasing constraints on creativity.

The Chasse Theater complex in Breda, the Netherlands, bears testimony to how much Herman Hertzberger's architecture has changed since completing the Ministry of Social Welfare in The Hague (AR March 1991). Up to and including that building, his designs were tightly disciplined by the repetitive patterns and elements he used to generate them. Now his designs are much more loosely organised, often below wavy roofs whose curves are only loosely related to the spaces below. But with the Chasse Theater, the change reflects not only a shift in his general design approach, but was provoked also by the constraints Hertzberger faced in designing and constructing the complex.

The Netherlands is no longer the architectural Utopia and bastion of civic and social virtues it once was. Instead, an extreme form of Thatcherite barbarism is rampant. Civic buildings are no longer built on prime sites, but on residual ones unattractive to the private sector. Budgets for public buildings are not only meagre, but every cent must be accounted for in non-aesthetic terms; for instance, as necessary to achieve such technical performance as fire-ratings or insulation standards. There is no room for frivolities like 'architecture'. (Though this has now reached an extreme, it accords well with Dutch Calvinism and the view of Dutch Modernists that they were not arty architects but bouwkundingenieur.) To ensure all this, project managers dominate, controlling purse strings, dictating materials and finishes, and even keeping architects in the dark as to the available budget. In such circumstances, the architect can pursue no elaborately coherent vocabulary, but must design in a way that is loose and as tolerant as possible of change (during and not just after construction).

Historically, Breda was of strategic importance in defending the Netherlands from the south, and much of the inner city's built fabric and open space was dedicated to the military. But the army is now moving out, vacating historic buildings and freeing up land for redevelopment. In place of the army, there is a rapid influx of new business and residents. To serve these and attract yet more, the city council has invested in new cultural facilities, in particular a new library (also by Hertzberger and completed in 1993) and the Chasse Theater (named after a swashbuckling nineteenth-century general born in Breda). The latter building actually comprises three theatre auditoria, each different in size and approach to flexibility, and two cinemas, with foyer space and bars for all of these.

Though the site was a residual one, squeezed between a hideous new town hall and an abandoned barracks, it also had considerable potential. Despite being set back behind an overly amorphous 'civic piazza' (from which can be seen the nearby library) it is fairly prominent on the road that rings Breda's compact historic core. Behind and to the south is a huge tract vacated by the military, for which a redevelopment masterplanned by Rem Koolhaas and OMA is proposed and to which the theatre can probably make connection. And against the site's west side is the courtyard of the U-shaped barracks, a building of some character. This consists of the remains of a thirteenth-century monastery and later additions, hence its name: the Kloosterkazerne. It is now proposed that this be refurbished as a four star hotel, thus ensuring yet more life in the area at night. Also, the hotel's restaurants will supplement the cafes in the Chasse Theater and its catering resources might serve the parties and banquets that can be held in the two most flexible auditoria.

When Hertzberger was commissioned, the basic plan for the auditoria had already been fixed by theatre consultant lain Mackintosh. Besides fixing the size and broad character of each hall, the crucial determinant of this layout was ease of unloading and installing props. Hence the stages of the larger theatres and the small 'black box' hall all abut a single loading bay. This inevitably had to be on the eastern edge of the site, opening onto a parking lot behind the town hall. As a result, the back-to-back larger halls, with the smaller one between them, fill most of the site from the eastern boundary inwards, leaving the architect with only a residual area to the west in which to plan the foyers and cinemas.

As well as designing these and working up the schematic proposals for the theatres, the commission presented another challenge: how to deal with the fly-towers. These tend to be prominently intrusive elements in the urban scene, and here there is an awkwardly close-spaced pair. This specific concern coincided with a more general one that largely accounts for the recent changes in Hertzberger's architecture: how to better integrate his buildings into the city. He has always seen his designs as urban microcosms, with the repetitive, more private spaces arranged around a communal focus that was analogous to a street (Centraal Beheer, AR January 1979, and the Ministry of Social Welfare) or square (Apollo, AR January 1985, and De Evenaar schools, AR July 1987, De Overloop old age home, AR April 1985). But his early works were generated from the inside outwards, with the exterior a mere product of the interior and so inadequate in terms of urban neighbourliness. More than a decade ago he learned to compose buildings, without any compromise to the integrity of the internal arrangements, with very satisfactory, even sophisticated, facades.