At the Center of the former Czar City

The center of St Petersburg is currently changing: On a ten hectare large industrial wasteland within the city at the Northern shore of the river Neva, the “Europakai” quarter is scheduled to be completed by 2016. Right opposite of the Eremitage and under consideration of already existing classic city structures, a large-area block and shore development based on plans of Berlin architect Sergei Tchoban is to be erected. At the core of the South-eastern end of the oval circus, a representative theater building is planned to be built for the world-famous Boris Eifman ballet ensemble. During the realisation competition held in 2009, the futuristic design by UNStudio from Amsterdam was voted best, Jean Nouvel and Snøhetta Arkitektur from Oslo had participated as well.

Streamlined Design

During previous years, the architects gathered around Ben van Berkel have already realized the Theater Agora in the Dutch town of Lelystad and the Musiktheater in Graz in Austria. The new building for St Petersburg is the team’s third large-scale theater project. The contrast couldn’t be any greater: Since in the middle of the strict grid of streets of the Europakai and surrounded by geometrical natural stone façade grids, the streamlined building sculpture by UNStudio looks like an avant-garde spaceship from another planet.

A striking detail of the nearly triangular structure is the organically folded outer shell, vaulted towards the inside in some areas, consisting of closed and punched metal panels taking turns with each other, creating a flowing transition between inside and outside. This way, the semi-transparent interior turns into an artfully staged inner-city stage at night. Additional references to the surroundings are made by falling back on the eaves height of 28 meters realized throughout the city under consideration of the central lines of sight towards the cathedrals Peter-and-Paul and Prince Vladimir, both being famous landmarks of the city.

  
Multi-layered Interior   

Just as spectacular as the outer shell is the theater’s interior with its building-high, yet completely column-free entrance and lobby area inside the pointy south-eastern part of the new building. The freely projecting balconies and access ways, hanging like ribs in front of the façade, as well as the triangular openings in the façade form an impressive anacrusis for the upcoming theater event. A large hall with 1,000 seats, a smaller one with 300 seats as well as changing and rehearsal rooms for the nearly 250 dancers of the ensemble are planned for the end-to-end closed Northern part of the building. The horse-shoe shape of the two halls is supposed to allow for a maximum of closeness to the dancers. You can’t have any more theater than this.