Puppet Theatre Maribor

A new puppet theatre is placed within the baroque structure, abandoned a long time ago. Smaller spaces, required by the brief, are accommodated within the existing building. The larger volumes, intended for the main part of the brief, such as the main auditorium, the tower and all the accompanying technology, are placed within a new body. The tower stands on a kind of 'foot', which is placed on the opened edge of the monastery atrium. It carries also the roof over the auditorium & atrium, independently of the existing original structure, as well as the roof over the openair auditorium, intended for openair events on the other side. But there is an ambarrasement in puppet theatres! In this kind of theatres the performances can be very different: there are plays with puppets which measure only few inches, and there are others, that can be performed with puppets of up to ten feet tall! And all of them demand respective atmosphere! In our project we intended to achive this changing atmosphere by varying the size of the auditorium (which is placed in the monastery's atrium.).

This is made possible by a movable element, we called it 'technology wall', which houses technical spaces (light and sound cabin) and storage for seating. It can move forwards and bakwards, forming this way an adequate size of the auditorium and suitable atmosphere for the specific tipe of performance. And can be moved up to the position where the original atrium remains completely empty. O lot of effort was made for less possible damage the weak original structure. But there are pleasures in discoveries of the hidden dignities of original structure.