The New Wexford Opera House | Keith Williams Architects

Keith Williams Architects in collaborazione con l'Ufficio lavori pubblici (OPW), ha costruito nel centro della città, sul sito del vecchio Teatro Reale, uno teatro completamente nuovo di 7,235 mq.
Il progetto contiene due teatri di diverse dimensioni. L'auditorium principale, The O’Reilly Theatre, che ospita 780 posti a sedere e uno supplementare, The Jerome Hynes Theatre, di 175 posti.

Il vecchio Teatro Reale nel corso dei decenni è stato radicalmente modificato e ampliato in funzione delle necessità dell’uditorio. Con il passare del tempo la struttura si è degradata tanto da pregiudicare il futuro del Teatro. Il Consiglio di Amministrazione della Wexford Opera, su consiglio dell’Ufficio Lavori Pubblici, ha ordinato la demolizione del vecchio edificio e, successivamente all’acquisto dell’adiacente suolo delle stamperie Wexford People, la ricostruzione in loco del nuovo Teatro.

Il team di progettazione è composto da Keith Williams Architects, dagli Architetti dell’OPW (Klaus Unger e Ciarán McGahon), Arup Consulting Engineers e Carr Angier.

Il problema complesso è stato trovare il modo migliore per preservare lo spirito del vecchio Teatro Reale, il segreto di un teatro nel cuore della città, e inserire una struttura molto grande e complessa su un sito in pendenza appena sufficiente ad accogliere l’edificio.

In termini architettonici, il nuovo teatro può essere visto come una serie di pezzi che ruotano attorno ad un auditorium principale, il cui nucleo è composto dal vano macchinisti (flytower) e dal teatro più piccolo. Il nucleo è stato poi avvolto in una sorta di “collare” architettonico contenente i locali di servizio che lo bloccano nei margini irregolari delle trame urbane del suo entroterra.
Il nuovo complesso ha mantenuto gli straordinari elementi di “sorpresa” e “segretezza” caratteristici del vecchio Teatro Reale, reintegrando in sé il tessuto storico del centro medievale di Wexford.

L'ingresso principale è deliberatamente poco visibile; una grande porta è stata come “punzonata” sul piano inferiore di una delle terrazze degli edifici che danno accesso ai singoli piani del vestibolo posteriore. Il vestibolo si apre su uno spazio di quattro livelli, cuore del sistema pubblico di circolazione, da cui partono gli ascensori per tutti i piani e le scale principali che sembrano attraversare il vuoto.

La scala e gli ascensori riconvergono, cinque piani al di sopra della strada, in una galleria vetrata che ricollega il visitatore con la città e con una vista spettacolare sul mare, il ponte e il fronte del porto.
Gli spazi del foyer sorprendono per le loro dimensioni, e come una sequenza musicale, si susseguono in un ritmo quasi barocco dall’angusto ingresso fino agli impressionanti volumi del O’Reilly Theatre, l’auditorium principale.
Quest’ultimo si ispira alla forma di un violoncello e alle curve di una tradizionale forma a ferro di cavallo, spazio operistico à l'italienne. Le sue superfici sono rivestite di legno di noce nero americano e le sedute di una pelle viola pallido che conferisce all’auditorium un senso di ricchezza. Nel suo insieme l'auditorium principale possiede un raro senso di intimità e imponenza al tempo stesso.

Lo spazio più piccolo, The Jerome Hynes Theatre, è una semplice black box con posti a scomparsa con un’acustica eccezionale. Utilizzando il rivestimento di legno di noce per le superfici di questo spazio e per quello delle gallerie laterali gli architetti hanno creato un ideale legame con il teatro principale.

La scala dell’edificio e il suo contributo allo skyline di Wexford sono esigui, quando lo si guarda dalla riva del fiume Slaney. Visti da lì, il nuovo vano macchinisti, l’auditorium e le parti superiori dell’edificio, che appaiono come inglobati nello skyline delle guglie di Wexford, annunciano la presenza di un nuovo eccezionale edificio culturale nel centro storico della città.


BACKGROUND
Wexford Festival Opera has been running since 1951, playing a central role in the cultural life of Ireland, and in the world of Opera and Arts internationally.

The rebuilding of Wexford Opera House, is one of Ireland’s most important cultural projects of recent times, and has been completed on schedule for the 2008 autumn opera festival.

In a far reaching €33 million building programme to designs by the Office of Public Works in Ireland with Keith Williams Architects, a totally new opera house has been constructed in the town centre on the site of the old Theatre Royal, the demolished former home of the world famous opera festival.

The purpose-designed opera house contains two theatres of differing scales. The principal auditorium accommodates 780 seats, whilst a new adaptable auditorium of 175 seats provides for performance in a variety of formats.

Facilities in the new 7,235 sqm theatre include:

• The O’Reilly Theatre, a 780 seat state of the art auditorium specifically designed for opera
• The Jerome Hynes Theatre, a 175 seat second space for drama, music, and rehearsal
• Main stage, orchestra pit, flytower and back stage
• Foyers/box office/cloaks/bars and café /wcs
• Hospitality Areas
• Backstage facilities for directors, conductors, designers and singers
• Dressing rooms
• Chorus Rehearsal Rooms
• Prop Making

PROJECT HISTORY

Originally dating from the early C19th, the old Theatre Royal had over the decades been radically altered and extended, but its audience capacity still fell short of demand and its front-of-house and backstage facilities were seriously inadequate. By the turn of this century, the building which had not been listed and by that time was devoid of any historic architectural detail, had become so run-down that the future of the Festival was imperilled. The Wexford Opera Board approached the Office of Public Works in Ireland (OPW - Ireland) for advice on its options. The OPW - Ireland were clear that it could only recommend demolition of the old building rather than contemplate further refurbishment or extension. Alternatives considered included a move to the Ferrybank shoreline on the opposite side of the Slaney estuary. This would have provided a dramatic location for an iconic building, but one that would always have run counter to the unique spirit of the Wexford festival, which has always been set in the heart of the town, changing irrevocably its unique character.
As a consequence, in 2003 the Festival board made the unanimous decision to rebuild on the Theatre Royal site. The WFO acquired the adjacent Wexford People printing works, significantly increasing the size of its original site, thereby allowing a rebuild and expansion to be planned.
The OPW Architects (Klaus Unger and Ciarán McGahon) working with Arup Acoustics and theatre consultants Carr Angier developed a scheme design for the project and secured planning consent. The OPW then augmented the design team with Keith Williams Architects, ARUP consulting engineers, OPW M+E Services and others to develop and refine the concepts, and implement the project. Although a keen opera goer himself, Williams’ own first attendance at Wexford was rather symbolically, the last opera to be performed in the old theatre in late 2005.

DESIGN CONCEPT
The complex problem for the architectural team was how best to retain the spirit of the old Theatre Royal, that of a secret opera house in the heart of the town and yet insert a very large and highly complex spatial programme into a steeply sloping backland site barely large enough to accommodate it. The orientation of the main elements of stage and auditorium was self- determining in that large scale vehicular access could only be achieved from one point within Wexford’s dense Medieval street pattern, thereby fixing the stage position, get-in, and hence the auditorium location

In architectural terms, the new opera house may be seen as a series of formal set-pieces centred around the main auditorium, fly-tower and the smaller second theatre forming a nucleus at the heart of the organisation. The nucleus was then enveloped by an architectural collar containing the supporting spaces which locks it into the irregular edges of the backland plots of urban block in which it is situated.

Close up, the new complex has retained the extraordinary element of surprise and secrecy so characteristic of the old Theatre Royal, by re-integrating itself into the historic fabric of Wexford's medieval centre, behind reinstated terraced buildings.

The main entrance is deliberately a subtle affair, an enlarged doorway punching out the lower storey of one of the terraced buildings giving access to the single storey vestibule behind. Internally, the bust of the founder, Dr Tom Walsh sits on axis to the approach. The vestibule opens into a four storey toplit space, the heart of the public movement system from which lifts to all levels and the main processional stair which switchbacks up through the void, are evident. Public balconies on two higher levels, allow theatre goers to overlook the space and each other, and revel in the theatrical flannerie that is so much a part of the opera experience. Five stories above the street, the processional stair and lifts reconverge in a glazed viewing gallery reconnecting the visitor with the town and giving spectacular views over the sea, bridge and harbour front for the first time. The foyer spaces are intended to surprise in their scale, and as a sequence, unfold in an almost Baroque rhythm from the compressed entrance to the dramatic volumes of the main auditorium itself.

The O’Reilly Theatre, (the main auditorium), has been inspired both by the form of a cello and the curves of a traditional horseshoe-form operatic space à l’italienne. Its surfaces have been lined in black American walnut whilst the seating has been finished in pale purple leather giving the room a rich sense of material quality. The C19th horseshoe form established a sense of grand tradition whilst the side balconies and faux boxes ensure that the side walls are populated, bringing actors and audience into the closest of communes. The curvaceous qualities of the room and its balconies, and its unbroken timber materiality are intended to be analogous to a stringed instrument, perhaps the cello. To continue the simile further, the technical elements of the theatre such as the lighting bridges are floated free and set against the timber lined ceiling, comparable aesthetically to the cello’s technical elements, its finger board, bridge and strings.

The timber which covers every surface is intended to imbue the room with a sense of consistency and rigour, resulting in a space of great visual weight.

Overall the main auditorium is intended to have a rare sense of both the intimate and the grand.

The smaller space, the Jerome Hynes Theatre, although in many senses a simple black box theatre with retractable seating, has an exceptional volume through which the technical level tension wire grid is barely perceptible. By using walnut cladding to selected surfaces in this space, and side galleries, a familial connection with the main theatre has been formed and a sense of material richness endowed.


Though primarily conceived for the autumn opera festival, the new building is intended to operate as a year round arts venue, for both additional Wexford Festival productions and visiting companies.

The scale of the building and its contribution to Wexford’s silhouette only becomes truly apparent when the project is viewed from the banks of the River Slaney. From there the new flytower, auditorium and the upper parts of the building, appear as a captured pavilion in the skyline alongside the spires of Wexford’s two Pugin inspired churches and the Italianate tower of the Franciscan Friary, announcing the presence of an exceptional new cultural building in the historic townscape.