Wyly Theatre designed by OMA and REX, boasts auditorium visible to passers-by from the outside
Rem Koolhaas and former colleague Joshua Prince-Ramus have designed a theatre in Dallas, Texas, which opens this week.
The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre has ground-level performance space and auditorium visible from the outside, enabling passers-by to glimpse the action inside.
Unlike a typical theatre, the Wyly accommodates back-of-house and front-of-house areas above and beneath the auditorium rather than wrapped around it.
Koolhaas, of Office of Metropolitan Architecture, who will be giving a lecture in theatre on 15 October, said: 鈥淏y stacking all facilities necessary for the functioning of a theatre in a single vertical volume, we create a situation where the technologies of the stage define an infinite variety of theatre arrangements, from the completely open to the completely enclosed.鈥�
With 12 storeys clad in tubular aluminium, the building has a total area of 7,500 m2 and includes a cocktail bar, offices, costume shop, and a multipurpose rooftop space.
The Wyly uses a state-of-the-art 鈥渟uperfly鈥� tower, able to efficiently move scenery and seating, facilitating unprecedented flexibility and experimentation in the configuration of a theatre space: proscenium, thrust, traverse, arena, studio, and flat floor arrangements can be set up in less than a day.
Koolhaas worked on the design with Joshua Prince-Ramus, who in 2006 left OMA to form REX, where he continued to oversee the construction of the Wyly.
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