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Composed Upon Palace St Theatre: A Monument in Three Acts

Part 2 Project 2021
Simran Lall
Cardiff University | UK
Composed upon the remains of the Palace St theatre, through the recollection of Westminster’s architectural ghosts and evocation of Poet’s Corner as a locus of literary and collective imagination, the proposals for a new theatre are situated conceptually between stage-set and architecture. The thesis operates at the intersection of architecture and scenography to explore notions of monumentality, historicism & preservation.

If 'All the world's a stage' then the monument is conceived as the plein-air theatre of history, identity & memory. A blended experience of dramatized and architectural reality is created. When can the design be perceived as an illusionistic enactment or description of history, and when can it be interpreted as an evocation of the past?

Architectural and scenographic devices conspire to achieve a poetic transposition; a superimposition of diaphanous layers, semi-transparencies, graduated illuminations are employed in the design for the conjuration of atmosphere, rather than the construction of a borrowed building type.

Blurring distinctions between architectural rendering and pictorial illusion, re-adapted, new layers are inserted into a theatrical montage of surviving fragments, memories and newly fantasised or invented architectural components.

Transposing these ideas up to the mise-en-scène of Westminster’s monumental landscape, a critique of architectural replication and heritage emerges.

Simran Lall

Tutor(s)
Alexis Germanos
2021
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