Pubs Rwcmd Auditoria

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Concert Halls • Theatres • Convention Centres • Cinemas • Arenas

Annual 2012

nside:

rank Gehry’s brave New World

he Mariinsky, St Petersburg

Musical youth: attracting new audiences

Canterbury tale: Marlowe Theatre

S t o n e r o s e Z a h a

H a d i d ’ s p

e b b l e - i n

s p i r e d

o p e r a h o

u s e b l o s

s o m s i n G

u a n g z h o u



AUDITORIA ANNUAL 2012

THEATRE PROJECTS

ROYAL WELSH COLLEGE OF MUSIC & DRAMA

The opening gala concert in the Dora

Stoutzker Hall at the Royal Welsh

College Of Music & Drama in Cardiff



Building for the future The Royal Welsh College o Music& Drama (RWCMD), or to giveit its official title Coleg BrenhinoCerrd a Drama Cymru, hasrecently extended its acilities to

include a world-class perorming arts centre torival some o the best acilities in the UK. Tenew centre adjoins and enhances the college’sexisting acilities, giving a nod to the illustriouspast o the college, while adding two outstandinperormance spaces, drama rehearsal studios anan exhibition gallery.

Drawing on the experience o international

theatre consultants Teatre Projects, award-winning BFLS Architects (ormerly Hamiltons)and internationally-renowned acousticiansArup, the design project placed the needs o thusers at the very heart o their creative processTe new centre careully balances the primaryrequirements o the acility to teach studentstheir craf, and the provision o a much-needed venue or the local community to enjoy. Tespaces are designed with optimal unctionalityin mind and with the versatility to accommodastudent learning as well as proessional events.College principal Hilary Boulding outlinedher hopes or the project as a venue that would“significantly enhance opportunities in the cityand region o Cardiff, and the many proessionand community groups that contribute toCardiff ’s vibrant cultural lie”.

Te college’s ambitious brie was no easytask. Te Welsh have become synonymous withgreat artistic talent, and designing a acilityto contribute to such a culturally rich regionneeded to take the provision o other arts centrin the region into account, not least the nearbySherman Teatre and St David’s Hall, which haboth served the college’s perormance needs inthe past. Te BFLS-led design team approached

the design challenge pragmatically, designing tperormance and rehearsal spaces or the colleg“rom the inside out, or acoustic excellence antheatrical intimacy”, as project director JasonFlanagan explains. o achieve this, the designteam drew on their combined experience ocreating other complex perorming arts acilitiesuch as Te Sage Gateshead, which Flanaganhelped design while working at Foster + Partneand which also involved a strong collaborativerelationship with both Teatre Projects andArup Acoustics.

How do you turn an exceptional performingarts college into a world-class teaching facility?

Theatre Projects looks at how a new building project for the Royal Welsh College of Music

& Drama did just that

ROYAL WELSH COLLEGE OF MUSIC & DRAM





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But the importance of this £22.5 millionproject is best understood by looking at thecollege’s humble beginnings. Established in1949 as the Cardiff College of Music, the onlyfacilities were two rented rooms in CardiffCastle. Te immediate post-war years sawother new performing arts schools springingup around the UK, including Bristol Old VicSchool, Rose Bruford College and the GlasgowCollege of Dramatic Art (which later becamethe Royal Scottish Academy of Music andDrama). But it wasn’t until 1977 that theCardiff College of Music expanded to includedrama training and relocated to purpose-builtaccommodation. It also changed its name to theWelsh College of Music & Drama to reflect itsexpanded curriculum.

Interestingly, the college still promotes theteaching of music above drama, with only athird of its 640 students studying theatre-relatedsubjects. But the quality of its acting alumni isalso world class, as demonstrated by notableluminaries such as Sir Anthony Hopkins, KeithAllen, Dougray Scott, Rob Brydon, and Eva

Myles. Te college’s growing reputation as aninstitute of excellence was recognised in 2002,the year of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, when itreceived its Royal title.

Diverse offering

It was clear at the turn of the millennium that thecollege’s theatre spaces were no longer sufficientfor their ever-growing need for modernperformance training facilities. Te college had

followed the national trend in expandingundergraduate and postgraduate courses to offermore diverse subjects than the previously simplemusic, acting, or stage management training.Tis increased variety of courses, coupled withgreater demand for places and competition withother international colleges, happily coincidedwith the boom in lottery-funded newperformance buildings in the education sector.RADA and the Central School of Speech andDrama in London both benefited from majorrenovation or expansion projects, and RWCMDduly followed suit. Te new facilities wereopened on 23 June 2011 with a week-longresidency of the Welsh National Opera.

Performance spaces

Te design of the building mimics the differencesin the main performance spaces – the 450-seatDora Stoutzker Concert Hall (the first purpose-built chamber recital hall in Wales) and the 160-seat Richard Burton Teatre. Te building hasformal rectangular, straight-walled sections thatreflect the formal square shape of the

proscenium-arch theatre, while the concert hall’smore informal oval shape is emulated in theplayful curved design at the back of the theatre,masking where the new facilities adjoin theoriginal 1970s building. Each performance spacealso has its own aesthetic identity, with buildingmaterials sourced from around the UK –Portland Stone clads the theatre as a reference tothe adjacent Cathays Park, and Western RedCedar decorates the interior of the concert hall.

N i c k G u t t r i d g e / B F L S


B F L S

The striking exterior (above

and top left) contrasts with the

warmth of the Dora Stoutzker

Concert Hall (centre)



Meanwhile the bright and elegant foyer is aremarkably open and communal area, much likethe park behind it. And despite its huge volume,it remains intimate and inviting. Te timber-clad concert hall and white-walled theatre faceeach other at opposite ends of the foyer, theirdistinct façades suggesting the differentperformance environments within. Althoughstrikingly different in design and purpose, thetwo spaces complement each other well.

From the outset of the project, it was clearthe main performance spaces required carefulconsideration. Te client’s brief was to designa proscenium-style theatre to internationalperformance standards, and a world-class recitalhall. Te specification for the latter was a criticalfactor of the project. Cardiff already had a largeconcert hall, but no venue for smaller, moreintimate work. RWCMD’s new concert hall wasdesigned with this in mind. It would provideboth a private training facility for students anda public venue to attract major professionals toplay, thus increasing both revenue and statusfor the college. Tis is where Teatre Projects’

extensive experience came into play, havingdesigned similar educational facilities for RADA,the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and the Irish WorldAcademy of Music and Dance.

Teatre Projects’ project manager forRWCMD, Petrus Bertschinger, explains that theRichard Burton Teatre was designed to “providestudents with the understanding and facilities ofthe most common venue type they’ll encounter

in their professional careers.” Teatre Projectsdesigned and specified the stage to be equivalento a medium-sized repertory or touring house;it has a full-height grid with 28 counterweightlines, fly and loading galleries, adequate wingspace, and a shallow forestage. It has an amplescenery dock, with doors opening onto the roaand generous production facilities – technicalstores, scenery and prop making, wardrobe andwigs. Tese support spaces mainly remain inthe original building and are moved to thetheatre for fit-ups, mirroring the set-up in aprofessional scenario.

Teatre Projects also designed the lightingand sound technical infrastructure with bothconventional dimming for lighting as well asplenty of data, DMX, and fibre lines throughouto manage the contemporary demand forintelligent lighting, digital sound and controllaspecial effects. Above the auditorium is a tensiowire grid for rigging front (face) lighting anda motorised forestage truss bar for specialistsound, stage, or lighting provision. Bertschingeexplains: “Te auditorium is an ideal and very

practical space that’ll enable students to designand produce a range of theatrical styles in aconventional UK-style setting. It’s large enoughfor students to learn essential performancetechniques like voice projection or technicalproduction in a realistic professional setting,while still being small enough to nurture theirtalent in an intimate environment.”

While the proscenium theatre is a veryfunctional space, the Dora Stoutzker Concert

ROYAL WELSH COLLEGE OF MUSIC & DRAM

N i c k

G u t t r i d g e / B F L S


The open foyer (top right)

and the Richard Burton

Theatre (above)




Hall is a stunningly beautiul room, shapedlike a boat with an oval orm on two levels,

higher at the back than the stage end. Te stallsseating gently slopes down to a raised stage withmotorised platorms built within, able to ormdifferent levels or different orchestral settings. Inaddition, a pit elevator can replace the ront tworows o seats and provide a orestage or largerorchestra rehearsals or musical perormances.

Between the balcony and ceiling, the walls areindented with a series o black vertical timberswhich Arup designed to break up reflectivesound. Te timbers contrast against the black-painted walls and also collectively ocus attentionon the audience and perormers rather than theroom itsel.

Functional designBFLS, Teatre Projects, and Arup worked closelytogether to design this room so it’s as unctionalas it is beautiul. Te ceiling was designed as aseries o undulating waves, painted in old-goldrom ront to back to reflect the warmth o theseating below and the acoustic requirements othe room. Te waves o the ceiling discretely hidethe platorm lighting, mounted on bridges abovethe ceiling, and projected through glazedopenings cut into it.

As Jason Osterman, production lighting

consultant or Teatre Projects, explains, “what’sspecial about this space is that we’ve managedto make it work where other venues don’t quiteget it right. Te lighting positions are perectwithout compromising the look o the room orits acoustic quality”.

Ian Knowles, who led the Arup team,continues: “Te occupied reverberation timeis 1.7 seconds, perect or strings and similarconcerto perormances. It sounds superb. Tis is

a world-class chamber music recital room –a room that does what it says on the tin.”

Without doubt, the concert hall has beenperectly designed or acoustic music, but thecollege also needs it to work or amplified music orbrass, which in turn required the room’s acousticsto behave very differently. Te ability to alter thereverberation time (R) o a small concert hall hasbeen a recent holy grail in perormance design.Tis hall has gone ar in that development.

In addition to the motorised platormsthat can change the size and shape o theorchestra/band stage arrangement, TeatreProjects specified our over-stage NOMADcontrolled flown truss bars or suspension ospeakers, lighting, screens, or drapes or popor rock shows. o help with the change in R,lower timber wall panels behind the stage canbe changed rom hard to sof suraces, while48 acoustic blinds on the balcony walls can beremotely lowered between the timber verticals.Tis makes it possible to accurately tune theroom to whatever R rating is required.

RWCMD’s new acilities have highexpectations to live up to. Tey fill a gap in thecultural provision o the local community, butmore importantly they’re now an indispensabletool or many students to learn their craf. Tereal test o any design project is how it is received

by its users and community – not just onopening night but or the years that ollow. Tisstunning new centre is a fitting contribution tothe college’s philosophy o promoting a lielonginterest in the perorming arts and supports thecollege’s position as the National Conservatoireo Wales.n

www.theatreprojects.com

www.bfls-london.com


The college is situated

in leafy Bute Park

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