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Architecture Case Study by Allison Sheehan
The NO99 Straw TheatreSalto AB Tallinn, Estonia
NO99 Straw Theatre is an object standing on the verge of being a pure functional container on one hand, and an art installation on the other. The Straw Theatre is built on the occasion of Tallinn being the European Capital of Culture, to house a special summer season programme of theatre NO99, lasting from May to October 2011. Thus it is a temporary building, operating for half a year, built for a specific purpose, programme and location. The Straw Theatre is built in central Tallinn, on top of the former Skoone bastion, one of the best preserved baroque fortifications of Tallinn. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bastion worked as a public garden, and during the Soviet era it was more or less restricted recreational area for the Soviet navy with a wooden summer theatre and a park on top. With the summer theatre having burnt down and the Soviet troops gone, for the last 20 years the bastion has remained a closed and neglected spot in the centre of town with real estate controversies and several failed large-scale develop- ment plans. In such a context, the Straw Theatre is an attempt to acknowledge and temporarily reactivate the location, test its potential and bring it back to use, doing all this with equally due respect to all historical layers of the site.1 Approach The Skoone Bastion was a place that had waited a long time for some sort of ritual happening, something that would break the reclusion it has to been in. In addition, the need for a new kind of public space: not an area occupied by kiosks selling kebabs or ecological goods, but rather a public space under trees with a view of the sea and lined with a playground, an outlet for borrowing books, a big chess board and a little café, public space where everyone can feel good and free to do as they please. And ad- ditionally the theatre as well: if this kind of installation and this kind of public space is already being created, a shot of contemporary culture should also come with the deal. The straw Theatre is a multi-layer project. The frist layer is the building itself, with its “hairy” exteriori walls it is a very attractive building, questioning the neighbouring cityscape. The second layer is the great programme of the Straw Theatre: absolutely the best performers, that one could think of, have also come here. And at last but not least is the environment: coming to this theatre feels like going on a trip, and according to the comissioner this is exactly the main core of it.2 Program The Straw Theatre is built on the occasion of Tallinn being the European Capital of Culture, to house a special summer season programme of theatre NO99, lasting from May to October 2011. Thus it is a temporary building, operating for half a year, built for a specific purpose, programme and location. How The rectangular main volume of the theatre is situated exactly on the same footprint than the past navy summer theatre. It is a black, uncompromisingly mute main volume contrasting with a articulate angular roof bringing shelter to the existing stairway reused as an outside entrance. The effect of the material – uncovered straw bales, spray painted black – does not leave any visitor cold. As the building is temporary, it has not been insulated as normal straw construction would require but has been kept open to experience the raw tactile quali- ties of the material and accentuate the symbolic level of the life cycle of this sustainable material. Challenges and Opportunities This project is a temporary answer to a temporary need that is linked to Tallinn being the European Capital of Culture in 2011. It will host plays during summer and will be removed. This intervention will physically last for months, fleeting as theatre and plays are. As Tiit Ojasoo, the artistic director of Theatre N099 explains: “Whatever happens here this summer will never happen again. What was today will not be tomorrow. We come to Skane, build a building, we bring children here to play, we bring gurus to make and display art, and when autumn arrives we’ll pack up our things again, dismantle the Straw Theatre and go back to our former lives. There is the sadness of creation and the beauty of departure in all this.” 3 The architects have succeed in answering the demands of enthusiast commissioners who already had a vision of a project that questioned the site position in the Tallinn, confronting the city to its history. The building Straw Theatre has been shortlisted for World Architecture Festival that will be held in Barcelona from the 2nd to the 4th of November 2011. 4 Endnotes 1. SALTO AB Website http://www.salto.ee/no99-straw-theatre/ (visited the 20/09/2011) 2. Article and documentary on the Theatre N099 Project Tiit Ojasoo, and Ene-Liis Semper from Theatre N099 interviewed about their project The film http://pohuteater.no99.ee/home#/straw_theatre (visited the 20/09/2011) 3. Tiit Ojasoo interviewed in the documentary on the Theatre N099 Project Cotation extract from the video http://pohuteater.no99.ee/home#/straw_theatre (visited the 20/09/2011) 4. World Architecture Festival ( www.worldarchitecturefestival.com, visited the 20/09/2011) Images 1,2,3. Photography extracted from SALTO AB Website 4. A plan of the project extracted from SALTO AB Website http://www.salto.ee/no99-straw-theatre/ (visited the 20/09/2011) 5. View of inside, Image extracted from the the documentary on the Theatre N099 Project References 1. ‘Põhuteater ei põle!’ Article by Rainer Kerge, May the 7th, 2011, published in Ohtuleht http://www.ohtuleht.ee/425826 (visited the 20/09/2011) 2. ‘NO99 Straw Theatre will open its doors on Saturday’ Article published on Tallinn 2011 Website http://www.tallinn2011.ee/no99_straw_theatre_will_open_its_doors_on_saturday (visited the 20/09/2011) 4. NO99 Straw Theatre by Salto AB. Article by Lydia Parafianowicz, published in FRAME on the 13th of September 2011 http://www.framemag.com/news/2523 (visited the 20/09/2011) |