Scarlet and black.

A curvaceous and colourful new theatre forms the focus of a major regeneration plan to stimulate the cultural and economic fortunes of Valenciennes.

Like nearby Douai, Mauberge and Mons, Valenciennes is set above extensive coalfields which straddle the Franco-Belgian border. By the end of the 1930s, decline in local coal-related industries had left Valenciennes with 21 per cent unemployment (set against a regional average of 16 per cent and a national average of 12 per cent). Cultural facilities are deemed essential to attract new employers to the town and Valenciennes once prided itself on being 'the Athens of the North'. Local artists include the great painter Jean Antoine Watteau, his nephews Louis and Francois Watteau and sculptors Henri Lemaire and Jean Baptiste Carpeaux. Both its Beaux-Arts Museum and public library boast outstanding historic collections (mostly acquired from church and aristocracy during the Revolution) and it now has a university. But the town theatre was destroyed during the Second World War and, as one local councillor remarked, 'nobody is much impressed by what we have, they expect such things. Potential employers will not even consider a town that lacks a theatre'.

The local council decided to make a new theatre the focus of a major urban regeneration programme for a 13 hectare site formerly occupied by a long-disused industrial complex located just north of the old town boundary. The proposed redevelopment of this site is envisaged as a link between a planned suburban business park and the existing quartier des Cannoniers,(*) an enclave containing an imposing eighteenth-century hospital and several large redundant military barracks (some now converted for university use).

Having won the competition for the design of the theatre in 1990, Blamont & Caroso Neiva submitted their detailed proposal in December 1992. A long delay followed while funding was negotiated and the completed building was not inaugurated until January of this year. Building costs of nearly 119 million FF were divided between the town council, the Nord-Pasde-Calais region, the Nord departement, central government and the European community.

Blamont & Caroso Neiva describe their new Phenix theatre as 'a red object erupting through a black mineral crust - new life emerging from an industrial past based on local coal'. To cater for performance arts of all kinds - theatre, dance, cabaret, solo comedians, a wide variety of concerts and (very rarely) film - the Phenix has two auditoria. The main auditorium is designed to evoke a traditional Italian theatre, with stalls, dress circle and galleries providing a total of 800 places. Sinuous, purpose-designed seating by Thomas Klug contributes to the general effect. Here, the main stage is fully equipped with fly-tower, traps and cellar. Optional extras include an apron extension or a narrow orchestra pit, either of which entails the removal of a few rows of seating. The second auditorium, which is smaller and more basic, can accommodate 200 seated spectators or nearly 600 standing. The two auditoria can be united by opening up the shared backstage area between the two stages - an arrangement that also enables scenery, or whole sets, to be shifted from one stage to the other.

The red-and-black theme is pursued in the building's other main public spaces. After the coal-black forecourt, there are black-painted walls, reddish wood floors and white ceilings of the main entrance. Beyond, red-walled circulation routes culminate in the main foyer where multiple flights of stairs lead up to the bar and to the various seating levels in the main auditorium. By contrast, backstage areas are rigorously functional and, in the main, painted battleship grey.

A subterranean exhibition space, underground car park and, on upper floor levels, staff accommodation for the 20 strong management team, lodgings for visiting companies and a 300 sq m subdivisible teaching and rehearsal space are also provided. The management team is well pleased with the building. The initial programme of events, staged from 26 January to 5 June attracted 2560 subscriptions and 23 800 spectators, while the 1998-99 season has already generated considerable interest - not least a series of four-hour Friday evening theatre classes open to anyone over 12, for which, encouragingly, nearly 200 local people turned up to enrol.

The Phenix belongs to the same generation of French provincial grands projets as Ibos & Vitart's remodelling and extension of the Beaux-Arts museum in Lille (AR September 1997). Like Ibos and Vitart, Blamont was an associate of Jean Nouvel during the late 1980s where he was much involved with the Opera House projects for Lyons (AR October 1993) and Tokyo (1996, unbuilt). He acknowledges the family resemblance between the Tokyo project and the Valenciennes theatre, which he attributes to programmatic similarities and a desire to pursue a line of enquiry that could not be fully developed in an unbuilt competition project.

If the setting of the Phenix remains somewhat raw, Valenciennes has gained a creditable example of the cultural architecture engendered by the centre-left in late twentieth-century Europe, to add to the traces of a past shaped in turn by Flemish, Burgundian, Spanish and (from 1677) French influences. The latest addition is a notable contribution to the town's cultural and, hopefully, economic evolution.

Architect Emmanuel Blamont & Lou Caroso Neiva, Paris

Project team Emmanuel Blamont, Lou Caroso Neiva, Francois Lemoine, Didier Onde, Sophie Thomas

Associate architect Blandine Roche, Patrick Fagnoni

Cost consultants Khephren, ATEC 

Structural engineer Khephren

Services engineer Alto

Acoustic consultant Albert Yaying Xu

Seating Thomas Klug/Poltrona Frau

Photographs Robert Cesar/Archipress

* For an illustrated account of Valenciennes from mediaeval times, with particular reference to the development of the quartier des Canonniers, see: Valenciennes: Les Canonniers, J.-L. Borloo, W. Maufroy, P. Pinon, J. Mereau and M. Culot, IFA/Norma, Paris, 1998.