OPEN ALBI THEATER BY DOMINIQUE PERRAULT ARCHITECTURE

In these days was opened the theater of Albi a site dedicated to all contemporary cultures and urban design, dress by Dominique Perrault with a scarf metal, framed between the University Champollion and the Cathedral of Saint-Cécile.

“We searched a compact volume which allows the theatre‘s dimension fit for the best into its urban surrounding. We also searched some functional, simple, direct and immediate principles, especially for the access, by the public space, of the trucks, on the same level than the stage and the backstage. It doesn't necessarily means that this back side of the theatre is « dead », because upstairs we can find the boxes and the administration, and above the experimental room. So, the four sides of the prism are opened and inhabited.

Of course, the only opening on the theatre place is fully glazed like a big window towards the city, welcoming all the lobbies, the galleries, the balconies and the big auditorium. From this transparent volume, we'll reach the experimental room on one hand and on the other hand the roof-terrace, where will be set up the hanging garden and its restaurant.

From this height, we'll have an open view on the outline of the city of Albi and on the surrounding landscape. The building is made of concrete, covered with bricks. We will use this material for the outside as much as the inside, for the floors as much as the walls and the ceilings, to create a mono material architecture. To the solidity of the brick, we oppose a smooth and lightweight cover, which will dress up the prism of the theatre.

This cover of metal mesh, red copper coloured, which doesn't rust, like clothing, will take on the verticality of the building on two sides, and will take away from it on the other sides, to open like a big drop cloth on the theatre place and the cinemas one. The curves and counter curves required for this static mesh create a free, happy and lyric architecture. We'll also see there the metaphor of the drop cloth or the evocation of an opera stage design.

But most of all we'll find there some brilliance, reflection, colour, which reminds an architecture « dressed in a bright light ». This metallic woven skin, as a lace, is going to protect the functions of the theatre without separating them from the functions of the city. It's going to filter the light and to break the wind and the rain. This big ornament has some sustainable qualities. The mesh will adjust to the spaces and the uses that it covers.

It will be possible to weave it larger to offer some views from inside to outside or tighter on other parts, to hide some structural walls, or to filter, like a sun break, the light in the big foyers. This tight veil will clear up some big arks at the public spaces level, to let the visitors and spectators come in, and then will rise up in the sky over the built volume to create an immaterial figure coming up in the landscape from the roofs of the city of Albi.

As a conclusion, the measures that will be taken are:
- The use of the basement to inset there some car parks and movie theatre, The qualification at the ground level of public spaces dedicated to each cultural building, - The search of simplicity and compactness, offering an efficient, flexible and economic theatrical instrument” Dominique Perrault.

Location: Albi, France 
Architects: Dominique Perrault Architecture 
Engineering: VP GREEN (structure), ETCO (mechanical engineering), RPO (economist), Changement à vue (scenograph), Jean-Paul Lamoureux (acoustics) 
Site Area: 34,000 m2 
Built Area: Theater 13 000 m2 (GFA), Cinemas 7 300 m2 (GFA) 
Year: 2014 
Client: Albi Town Council