Shakespeare Theater in Gdansk

A Shakespeare theater in Gdansk? What may seem strange at first glance is actually quite plausible – and has a long history, to which the new building by an Italian architect refers in an unusual way.

It took the research work of a professor of English literature at Gdansk University to uncover the English roots of Gdansk’s multifaceted theater history and, in the process, to discover traces of the Van den Blocke building: During archive studies in London, Jerzy Limon discovered an engraving by Peter Willer from 1650, which shows, among other things, the long-forgotten New Fencing School.

Long before archaeological excavations brought its relics to light, Limon established the Theatrum Gedanese Foundation in 1991 and gained the support of the Prince of Wales, among others. The aim of the foundation was to revive the tradition of English-language theater in Gdansk; this was already achieved in 1993, and since 1997 also as part of an annual Shakespeare festival. Now a theater dedicated to the works of Shakespeare has been rebuilt at the old location. A competition held for this purpose, in which architects from 17 countries took part, ended in January 2005 with the victory of Venetian architect Renato Rizzi. His bold design was implemented from March 2011 – at a cost of around 25 million euros. The new “Gdanski Teatr Szekspirowski ” building was opened in September 2014 and has already proved its worth with around 150 events in its first year.

Renato Rizzi did not have a faithful copy of the New Fencing School in mind. Although he drew on motifs from the city and the tradition of the Elizabethan Theater, he succeeded in giving the building its very own contemporary expression. With its massive walls made of dark brown Belgian hand-formed bricks in the historical Waal format (21 x 10 x 5 cm) and the buttress-like wall projections, the new building is reminiscent of both a city fortification – opposite a 200-metre section of the former city wall on the one hand and a multi-lane elevated road from the 1960s on the other – and the 14 Gothic churches of Gdansk. Several layers of wall enclose varied intermediate spaces: they can be used as open-air stages and café terraces or lead as narrow passages on the long sides to the roof of the low administrative wing, which can also be walked on and played on. Theater director Jerzy Limon also has his office here.

Flexible theater building

The 18-metre-high stage tower forms the show wall of the square, which is open to the public during the day, at a height of six meters with a view of the old town. It is also the backbone of the 12-metre-high theater space. The architect has “sunk” it into the center of the building like a treasure chest. Rizzi designed it as a hybrid space: The “nucleus” is a square room with three-storey spectator galleries on three sides based on the model (and even with the same, archaeologically verified axial dimension of 2.80 meters) of the New Fencing School; this in turn had referred to the “Fortune Playhouse” in London (1600 to 1649), which was also square.

You can find out more in Baumeister 10/2015