AMORAL THEATRE
FALL 2019 / ANN ARBOR, MICHIGANINSTRUCTOR: JULIA MCMORROUGH
42°16'51"N 83°44'08"W
TAUBMAN COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING
+Taubman College Student Show 2020 Honorable Mention
The theatre de Besancon was, in Ledoux’s words, “a return to morality.” It was a place to see and be seen, where the private box was replaced by a simple partition. “The theatre was to become a specialized and professionalized realm where an ‘audience’ would learn to appreciatethe aesthetic values of acting and the play.”
In all of this, Ledoux was right. It was time for a change in how theatre was experienced; however, this was 1775 and the theatre very much reified the social classes in place at the time. The rich bourgeoisie in the proscenium, the gallery, while servants and soldiers were to seat high up and hidden behind a colonnade. Almost as if they were undeserving of appreciating these qualities. And that’s the stage for 1775, Ledoux’s theatre was inaccessible and uninclusive.
If this is a moral theatre, I would like to bring forth an amoral theatre. Not to directly counter Ledoux’s architectural ideas, rather his ideas of society. This is a theatre that allows itself to be used in whichever way is deemed necessary by its occupants. Placed within a park – a very dead, yet full of life park – the goal for this project is to engage with the passerby, the actor, the set designer, etc., whether it’s a student taking a shortcut to class, or a theatre director coming in for the rest of the day for a dress rehearsal. The amoral theatre lays no obstacle to whomever decides to use it.
The theatre de Besancon was, in Ledoux’s words, “a return to morality.” It was a place to see and be seen, where the private box was replaced by a simple partition. “The theatre was to become a specialized and professionalized realm where an ‘audience’ would learn to appreciatethe aesthetic values of acting and the play.”
In all of this, Ledoux was right. It was time for a change in how theatre was experienced; however, this was 1775 and the theatre very much reified the social classes in place at the time. The rich bourgeoisie in the proscenium, the gallery, while servants and soldiers were to seat high up and hidden behind a colonnade. Almost as if they were undeserving of appreciating these qualities. And that’s the stage for 1775, Ledoux’s theatre was inaccessible and uninclusive.
If this is a moral theatre, I would like to bring forth an amoral theatre. Not to directly counter Ledoux’s architectural ideas, rather his ideas of society. This is a theatre that allows itself to be used in whichever way is deemed necessary by its occupants. Placed within a park – a very dead, yet full of life park – the goal for this project is to engage with the passerby, the actor, the set designer, etc., whether it’s a student taking a shortcut to class, or a theatre director coming in for the rest of the day for a dress rehearsal. The amoral theatre lays no obstacle to whomever decides to use it.
Stage + play
