Fiction Machine

In postwar Dnipro, Ukraine, the cultural and social infrastructure will be in crucial need of a re-emergence in order to heal the wounds of their society. Architecture's role in rebuilding civic society that highlights the lives of the locals without prescribing an outdated singular and targeted narrative is crucial. This project therefore confronts architecture’s role in shaping perceptions and asks: How can a theatre expose its own framed fi ctionality while giving voices to everyday interventions of the built everyday environment?

The Fiction Machine is a performative theatre designed for Dnipro’s Peremoha district, replacing a torn down Soviet-era cinema, the symbol of propaganda. The proposal reimagines the theatre as both a stage and a civic space, making the process of storytelling and the mechanics of architecture itself visible. Central to the design is an adjusted theatre fl y system that operates across two interconnected spaces: a traditional main stage and an anti-stage. The main stage off ers a familiar theatrical setting, while the anti-stage disrupts this convention—framing performances from multiple perspectives, exposing the backstage machinery, and allowing audiences to interact with stage elements in their dormant state. This breaks all of the expected preconceptions of the scenographic elements. Key to the design is the elevation of everyday objects and local interventions—such as activist concrete hemispheres blocking cars or gardening tools stored in the old disregarded garbage chute—brought about through interviews of the locals and translated into scenographic elements. These objects are integrated into the fl y system, becoming protagonists in staged narratives that refl ect the temporal and fi ctional aspects of our surroundings. Circulation through the theatre is a choreographed narrative that blurs the roles between viewer and performer, guiding users through production spaces and the interactive anti-stage that use replicas of the actual scenography that the viewer sees on the main stage. These act as counterweights through an adjusted fl y system which enhances the fi ctional abilities of the built environment. This creates a civic platform that embraces transparency, collective authorship, and the evolving stories of its users.