Drama and architecture.

The interaction of architecture and drama takes place on at least two levels: some buildings (most obviously theatres) are containers for drama; others themselves take part in the plot of human life by providing the audience with a set on which people participate in a drama that is both rewarding social ritual and satisfactory at a personal level. Of course the best theatres and opera houses combine the two, allowing the drama on the stage to be powerfully displayed while engaging the public in a series of events that makes a visit to the theatre a totally involving experience. in the nineteenth century, the great exemplar was Garnier's Paris Opera with its splendid staircases and foyers, dripping with ornament, painting and sculpture, made almost endless by the multiple reflections of the mirrors. This was the perfect setting for the bourgeoisie of the Second Empire: formal, obviously opulent, infinite in ambition. No wonder that it became the pattern for so many subsequent opera houses. In the twentieth century, the greatest example of such a building was probably Scharoun's Philharmonie in Berlin (though it has been far less copied than the Paris building). Here too is a great sequence of public spaces, but this time interwoven by a series of public routes which appear at first to be almost random in their disposition, but which create places within the great space in which the individual can feel reassured and casual social contact is encouraged. The Glyndebourne opera house (our coverage of which starts opposite) is plainly an informal place, starting as it does from the basis of a delightful ritual of country-house picnic opera-going that began in the'30s. Its quiet entrance under a tent enhances and intensifies the atmosphere. So does the handling of materials and space in the auditorium itself, where a volume which promises to have the visual and acoustic qualities of the best houses in the world has been created with a degree of respect for the nature of the event that masks the great sophistication of architectural and engineering input. Stanislas Fiszer's theatre at St Quentin-en -Yvelines (p71) is completely different. It is a formal termination to a grand axis in a rather dreary French New Town and has to act both as a public pivot and to some degree as a social centre to all the inhabitants. Hence the rather excessive formality of the front -- and the splendidly articulated internal public spaces which combine a sense of urban continuity with an informality proper for democratic society. On a much smaller scale, Benson & Forsyth's little museum, a monument to time, in the placeless town of Oshima (p67) in western Japan is also intended to help generate a sense of civic consciousness. Here, there are no human actors, just the eternal drama of the dance of sun and stars, and the interplay of the life of modern citizens with those of their ancestors, which are all miraculously focused through a small intense device made of bamboo, thatch and concrete. The film school built by Heikkinen & Komonen in rural Denmark (p78) has obvious affinities with drama. Yet here, the plot is derived from the nature of the landscape and heroic moments from the history of film itself. Our final example is the church at Kuopio in central Finland (p83) by Juha Leiviski. Churches, of whatever denomination, are by their nature buildings that contain drama: the celebration of humankind's relationship to God must always involve a degree of theatre. At Kuopio, Leiviski has called into play not only the essential dramatic interaction between priest and congregation, but has caused time and light, space and nature to take part. The church is a brilliant synthesis of deep human feelings of many kinds. These days, we are too often seduced by histrionic outward gestures in architecture. The buildings shown here demonstrate that truly dramatic architecture -- works that can touch our hearts and give us a sense of occasion -- draw their strength from much more subtle moves, generated f rom deep understanding of space, materials, people and the natural world. PETER DAVEY