Geppetto’s
Oliver Maclean for BDES3027 University of Sydney PortfolioI would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which this design process took place, the land of the Wangal people of the Eora Nation. I pay respects to their elders past, present and emerging. Always was, always will be.
the CONTENTS
the concept the site the whole the parts the books the food the meeting point the services the theatre the appendix
1 5 15 33 35 39 43 47 51 59
the CONCEPT
an exercise in separation | existing between
Geppetto’s Theatre is an exercise in separation. Separation of space. Separation of function. Separation from the everyday.
The dramatic arts are beyond, yet intrinsically connected to, the everyday. Historically it has been a place of escape, of fiction, a fairytale. Brechtian theatre seeks to counter this. There is a rejection of the Aristotelian idea of drama as an emotional purging.1 Instead, drama should be a fabel, a storytelling arrangement with politically didactic overtones. “Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it”.2 Geppetto’s shall entertain this idea, by facilitating the ‘Alienation Effect’.3
For Brecht boxing matches are the new models for performance.4 Audiences understand that the fighters do not innately hate one another - instead, audiences know the men battle as a result of the construct in which they have placed themselves. They, both the men and the viewers, can emotionally detach from the spectacle. In truth, boxing is not theatre, the punches are not merely spectacle. The audience is aware of the blurred line between the theatrics and the pain. Boxing exists between, so does drama, so does Geppetto’s.
By separating each function of the scheme away from the central causeway, the audience must piece together the independent episodes. A straightforward visit to Geppetto’s is not possible. They must move to the intermediary point between the everyday and the theatrical. Audiences must leave questioning the play and questioning the world to which they return.
The program is separated from itself, and from the everyday, yet still inherently connected. It is a still life over the water, familiar yet strange volumes exist between the theatrical and the everyday. It is a frame. A frame of functions. A frame for theatre. A frame for art.
1. Curran, Angela. “Brecht’s Criticisms of Aristotle’s Aesthetics of Tragedy.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59, no. 2 (2001): 167–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/432222.
2. Brecht, Bertolt, and John Willett. 1964. “A Short Organum for the Theatre.”. In Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthete, 196. London: Methuen.
3. The Alienation Effect is a result of “dramatic devices Brecht designed as barriers to empathy… used to distance the actor from empathy with the character” ibid., p.170 citing Brecht 1964.
4. Jameson, Fredric. Brecht and Method. London: Verso, 2000.
the SITE
yurulbin park | long nose point
Geppetto’s protrudes 500 metres from the edge of Yurulbin Park on Long Nose Point. The park itself hangs delicately off the Birchgrove peninsula at the junction of the Parramatta River and Sydney Harbour. There is a geographical tension where the two bodies of water meet. The translated name of the park, Swift Running Water, further affirms this tension. Existing on the border, it does not truly belong to either. Yurulbin presents an opportunity for a similar intermediary theatre - a theatre that is both detached from the everyday, and intrinsically attached. A theatre which exists between. Yurulbin Park
The point is accessible mainly via a ferry wharf to its North West. There are limited car spaces at the top of the hill, otherwise, walking from Birchgrove Oval is the only option.
The park is populated with eucalyptus trees, which create a sheltering canopy above the rocky landscape. The ground has a certain liberating emptiness, with only two separated structures being present - a decrepit sandstone boat ramp, and an aged timber fishing platform. These forms allow undiagnosed occupation by way of their simplicity, as is true for the grassy remainder. It is an unenergetic retreat from the city, offering views Eastwards so as to not become too detached.
Before the colonisation of Australia it was estimated 7,000 Aboriginal people called the Balmain area home. Withing ten years of British arrival this number had already diminished to 300.5 Until recently, there has been a systematic removal and disinterest in the language and culture of the traditional custodians. As such, it is difficult to speak of the pre-colonial occupation of Birchgrove and the history of the Wangal people.
The first European structure on the site was a timber wharf in 1888 for a cooperage business. It protruded towards the city from the locaiton of the current boat ramp. For several decades it was used by shipbuilders Morrison & Sinclair; Yurulbin Park was their privately-owned shipyard until it was purchased by the government in 1970. The site was then landscaped in 1981 and has since been left to age in place.6
5. Leichhardt Council. “A sign on Aboriginal people” Sydney: Yurulbin Park, 1981. Public Signage
6. Inner West Council. “Birchgrove Waiting Shelter” Sydney: Yurulbin Park, 2018. Public Signage
the WHOLE
a finger wharf
In Brechtian theatre, the components which together form the play are treated as autonomous elements. In notes for his 1930 Opera ‘The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’, Brecht suggests a “radical separation of the elements” that make up live opera: the text, the music and their performance.7 Each scene is independent, the audience must piece them together for a contiguous narrative to appear. Geppetto’s acts in a similar way. It does not want to be read as a unified mass. Rather, each program of the whole is separated into an independent pavilion: function incarnate, banal yet uncanny. Each pavilion doubles in its action above and below the decking. The human scale forms work hard within their confinements to free and elevate the auditorium. Similarly, the public places are separated vertically from the back of house, and thus a richer circulatory experience is created for both parties. A visual connection continues to exist. The back of house, additionally, is structurally supported by the public walkway. It hangs beneath, diminished in scale, giving superiority to the public. The patrons are left to piece together the disjointed mass, through experience, and to leave more aware of the world around them.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
6.
12. 5. 9. Public Access Private Access Bookshop Ticketing Pavilion Bar Kitchen Office Auditorium Stage Bathrooms Backstage Performer Changing Deliveries Storage Mobility
10. 13. 13.
11.
7. 14. 9.
7. 14. 9.
Geppetto’s Worm’s Eye Axonometric 1/250 1.25 3.75
the PARTS
pavilions springing off
the BOOKS
first point of call
The plan of the bookshop is the most straightforward of the floating concrete forms - a square. On the public level, the rigidity is softened with curving plywood joinery on the perimeter. To the East is a couch for waiting and reading, and to the West lies the point of sales for ticketing and the store. Beneath this, the structure of the square is embraced and the bare equilateral region acts as a loading dock. The rigidity is again broken in section with two offset vaulted polycarbonate roofs, opening the form vertically.
As patrons progress towards the theatre, they realise the analogous nature of each pavilion. The structures act as iterations of one another, both in terms of scale and form. As such, the buildings share a series of common principles from which their design evolves. Each is based on primitives: the cube, the dome, and the arch. These forms are arranged within themselves, expressing an everyday drama for the audience - and work hard to deliver their function.
the FOOD
preparation
The kitchen pavilion is a submarine. It hides its functional support and sinks beneath the public sphere. However, as per Brecht’s alienation effect, there is no true invisibility of the elements. The pavilion is separate but not inseparable. Dual domed periscopes protrude from the vaulted concrete base. The two appear as equal, and as equally part of a whole, but they are distinguishable in admittance and objective. The western provides for the public ordering of items, whilst the eastern is for the private delivery of said items. Audiences can observe the connection to the private - blurring the line between the theatrical and the functional elements of Geppetto’s.
Each connection between elements is also seen as independent. The adjoining bridges, between the main wharf and the kitchen, utilise a different architectural language from the structures they link. Instead of being a caricature of the structural vernacular, they are the structural vernacular. They are adaptable, and removable when necessary. They are strictly functional.
the MEETING POINT
a public gathering
Throughout the patron’s journey there a tension between each pavilion and the peninsula they leave behind. Each step is an opportunity to move away from the everyday. A transcendence aided by the iterative nature of the caricatured industrial concrete forms.
The cafe pavilion breaks the iterative nature. It talks to the theatre itself in its lightweight steel construction and fabric roof. It adds additional structural and formal language to the scheme. There is no strict delineation of spaceit is open and public. The meeting point notes the simplicity of the existing structures and the ease of occupation they facilitate. This region is to be used plainly. It sits in a prime position overlooking the Lower North Shore and Sydney Harbour. It is a specifically undiagnosed separation from the finger wharf. It could be anything, or it could be nothing.
the SERVICES
for freedom of the theatre
To compose the main theatre as a volume of potential and a frame for the arts, it must be liberated and freed of services. As such the sanitary facilities, vertical circulation, cleaner’s quarters and additional storage exist together - categorised in their own volume. There is a further assortment of space within the services block. Two equal plans, composed of a rectangle and semi-circle, house vertical circulation and sanitary functions. Externally they are distinguishable through a shift in materiality from polycarbonate to concrete between the two Southfacing walls - as per privacy demands.
The common, iterative, structural narrative of the concrete forms is expressed wholly in the services block. Both the domed and vaulted steel/polycarbonate roofing systems are present. The building is thus familiar to an audience - gentle guidance towards the main stage.
the THEATRE
a frame for art
Following Brecht’s ideas for ‘Epic Theatre’, and the 2009 production of ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ directed by Deborah Warner at the National Theatre, the hard borders of the stage are removed.8 What remains is the stage itselfthe things as they are.
The stage is a blank slate, a plywood box, not necessarily representative of any particular locality. Props are not positioned before the curtain call. They are carried into view as necessary, via the scene’s singular access point. The lighting system hangs from the ceiling, exposed to the audience.
There is no hiding, no independence of the public arena from the back of house - it is, as such, an alienation - controlling the degree to which audiences identify with characters and events of the stage. The information in the play is not easily digestible sans reflection, the process of empathy is delayed, and audiences must question the material presented.9 The stage and Geppetto’s as a whole, exist simultaneously in the everyday and in the theatrical - floating between the two.
Each element in the construction rests lightly. No components, individual or collective, are connected with the intention of permanence. The column-tofloor joint, for instance, is a ball and socket, so the levels of the Theatre appear to hover above one another. The fencing which surrounds each floor does not protrude directly from the structure. Instead, a prop attaches the chicken wire panelling to the perimeter. This supports the narrative of Geppetto’s as a space in between. It belongs to both the land and the water, to the dramatic and the real. Thus, the Brechtian plays performed at Geppetto’s ask the audience to question the world around them.10 They will be overtly political and offer an essentialist view of reality, waking one up to the power dynamics, the economic hardship, and the unjust world, which exists upon exiting the auditorium.
8. Warner, Deborah. “An introduction to Brechtian theatre.” By National Theatre. Youtube Video. Jul 26, 2012. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=l-828KqtTkA&ab_channel=NationalTheatre
9. “Brecht and Difference.” In Barnett, David. Brecht in Practice Theatre, Theory and Performance. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
10. “The stage offers material that cannot be easily assimilated without reflection on the part of the spectator, and so the difference between the sign-systems helps complicate the reception process and disrupts the processes of empathy.” ibid.
Geppetto’s
Geppetto’s Theatre Perspective Section 1/100
the APPENDIX
model images, weekly progress, precedents, bibliography, & acknowledgments
Geppetto’s
In its first scheme, the building was hyper-fixated on being an extension of the landscape. The finger wharf typology was a means to an end. Decking filled the width of the boat ramp - setting out a three-by-three-metre grid, a structural framework from which form may develop, Each transected the passageway towards the final destination. They were iterations of one another in terms of materiality and scale; a steel cage bookshop with timber furnishing; an open cafe solution housed underneath a tensile fabric roof; and a flexible theatre that takes motifs from those which precede it. At this stage, some key structural details were explored, including the beam grid floor structure and Mies van der Rohe’s cruciform column - which dissolves into their environment. These helped inform the later idea that the building should be detached from its site and the everyday.
and consolidation
As per feedback from my preliminary design presentation I sought to control the sequence of the scheme. This involved studying Bruther’s projects and design approach. For instance, their belief in the malleability of buildings and the liberation of space.
The plan of the scheme needed to be simple and well-composed to create freedom of its most important component - the theatre. As such the circulation/ services block was added. The finger wharf at this stage became its own element from which the pavilions spring, further individualising and separating the scheme into its parts. At this stage a hierarchy between spaces was not clear - the symmetrical entryways seemed to give each pavilion equal importance. Additionally, the path led to nowhere, the theatre was not placed at pole position - it was not the journey’s end.
In week eight we were asked to consider the external expression of the theatre building. From this I reviewed the sequencing of each pavilion and how they acted, both as individuals and as parts of a whole. The pier became a point of spatial division. Separating the concrete from the fabric, the public from the private, and the served from the servant. The differing scale of the entry points to these spaces is informed by the shift of access, of function. However, they needed additional contrast between themselves, something to break the rectangular monotony which was being expressed. Therefore, the circle was incorporated to counter the rigidity of the square. In section domed and vaulted roofs were added to open each building vertically, and soften the volume.
10
interim design presentation Long Nose Drama House Ground Floor Plan 1/500 2.5 7.5
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the