TNB 2012 - a public place-building

The interview with professor and doctor architect Romeo Belea on the project and transformation of the TNB - National Theater in Bucharest was conducted on November 14, 2012.

Françoise Pamfil: Dear Professor Doctor Architect, UAR magazine is honored that you have accepted the invitation to the interview. Please refer to the old and the new National Theater. Not knowing how to begin, I ask when and how did you start working at the TNB?

Romeo Belea: In 1962, prof. arh. Horia Maicu, chief architect of the capital at that time, initiated the formation of a team to design the TNB on the current site. As I had already worked in a team led by him (on the design of the Palace Hall), he moved me to the new team also within the Bucharest Project Institute (where I had been hired in 1958 by my former professor at the faculty, arch. Tiberiu Ricci) and at a time when I had just finished the realization of the student dormitories and canteens in Grozăvești and Regie. Prof. N. Cucu, prof. arh. V. Iorga, arh. J. Nămescu, prof. ing. Alex. Cișmigiu, eng. Dan Deleanu, eng. Necșulean, eng. Traian Pop, eng. Dragoș Badea etc., a world of professionals in their fields.

F.P.: When did the Bucharest National Theater project actually start?

R.B.: The solution was finalized in 1963 and a team made up of architects Maicu, Belea, Cucu, with Liviu Ciulei and Sică Alexandrescu as consultants, did the documentation and the discussions with outstanding specialists of the time (Marcel Beuer, Ben Schlanger, Walter Munruh, Newman, De Gaetani) in the USA, Germany and Austria. On the same occasion, I visited and studied many theaters, halls in general, realized at that time. On our return the content of the project was finalized and completed. The work began. Anton Teodorov, Ruxandra Fotino, Richard Bordenache, Eugen Apostol and others. After a short time (to my surprise, but at the suggestion of my former professors at the faculty), the management of the Project Institute Bucharest and Horia Maicu appointed me as head of the complex project.

For a 32-year-old architect it was a challenge, but experienced people like Maicu and Cucu, as well as very young - but also full of enthusiasm and daring - helped me to carry it through, not without bumps, moments of difficulty and difficulties.

F.P.: For recent architecture, it's a special case, to say the least, that the author of a converted building is also the author of the project to return to its original form. Basically, from 1962 to 2012, we are talking about half a century that belongs to the idea of a national theater project.

R.B.: Yes, it seems a unique case. I, at least, don't know of an architect resuming work on a project over which decades have passed and which, in the meantime, has undergone significant changes. But that in itself is not the whole story. Even more interesting is that the architect returns to the original architectural expression, but radically changes the way of looking at the same theme. From a work originally intended exclusively for drama, everything is transformed into a public building. Alongside theaters of various types, functions are being added to keep it open to the public 12-14 hours a day.

And to think that it all started from the extremely severe conclusions of the structural survey, which required the TNB to be reinforced (the body of the Great Hall with a consolidation by demolishing what had been added above and around the body, and two other bodies with current reinforcements). At that time, in parallel with the structural survey, we and the TNB management and I re-evaluated the existing spaces and functions, their technological evolution over time, and the possibilities of converting them into public functions.

F.P.: How exactly will this attraction or opening to the public be achieved?

R.B.: We proposed in the project and realized in the work, through certain conversions, large spaces for exhibitions, bookshops, antiquarian shops, cafes, bars, restaurant etc. This transformation became possible, first of all, because of the need to consolidate the building and because the architect, that is, I, met Ion Caramitru-commander on common ground. Coincidentally, we both had the same vision of the need to open up the existing space with different functions complementary to the theater performance, intended for the general public and not only for the dedicated spectator. And so a continuous public space has emerged through which all seven performance halls can be accessed and which contains bookshops, antiquarian shops, cafes, bars, restaurants and large exhibition spaces. We also agreed on a contemporary desideratum, namely that this building - literally located in the center of the city - should be relocated in the middle of an exclusively pedestrian space, with many green areas, with many possible events escaped from the interior, and not in the middle of a surface parking lot.

And through this transformation, the temptation and dream of remodeling important spaces in the building into a controlled passage between two urban spaces: the square towards the University and a street, once picturesque with a house of Liviu Ciulei, that is, Tudor Arghezi Street, was also fulfilled.

But the building is destined for the National Theater and we have to come back to the fact that by converting some existing spaces, three other performance halls have been created in addition to the existing halls: Sala MICĂ - transformable into the space of a former scenery warehouse; Sala PICTURA (of course, the most interesting transformable hall next to Sala STUDIO - which, I must remind you, has remained, in the existing theatrical landscape, the only hall that in 20 minutes can be transformed from Italian style to Elizabethan or arena, each of the three variants having a seemingly definitive finished frame, which explains its uniqueness). The PICTURA room replaced the painting studio (hence the name), which had become too large for the new technology. A transformable open-air hall located on the lid of the Great Hall, next to the café included and open in the green space on the awning of the central body, from where the view plunges towards extraordinary buildings - the University, Architecture, Șutu, Colțea, Agriculture. All these halls will be accessible from that vast space open to the public many hours a day.

F.P.: You mentioned at the beginning of the discussion about the theater a kind of golden list of modern architecture in Romania. I dare to ask who was your role model as an architect and what do you consider to have shaped you?

R.B.: Hard to answer. I have kept a real cult for the teachers who trained me and my colleagues: Grigore Ionescu, Ascanio Damian, Piki Pătrașcu, Duiliu Marcu, Tiberiu Ricci, Octav Doicescu, Solomon Laurian, Tiberiu Niga, Nicolae Nedelescu, Henri Stern and others. Since, after graduating, Ricci hired me at Project Bucharest and I worked with him (literally), I can say that his demeanor, professionalism, decisiveness, the discreet attention he gave me - together with the atmosphere he created - followed me and still follow me today.

I owe a great, great debt to Horia Maicu for the confidence in a young man, for the self-confidence he instilled in me almost by force and, of course, for that last meeting which he cherished very much before he passed away, an opportunity for a definitive and solid reconciliation of the moments of divergence that we had still been going through. I respect Grigore Ionescu for his moral uprightness, for his courage to abandon an extraordinary career as a designer in favor of research and the affirmation of our architectural values. In the context of the current discussion, I admire Liviu Ciulei for all that I have learned from an extraordinary, complete and complex man of the theater. But I also had to learn from Liviu Ciulei as an architect. I remind you of the wonderful hall he made in the Sala Icoanei, the extraordinary proposals for a theater he made with Paul and Stan Bortnovschi.

F.P.: What is and where does your connection with theater come from?

R.B.: As a spectator, I have always loved theater. The National Theater in Craiova was in the hall of the National College "Carol I", when I was a student there, and I was there as often as I could. So then, at the beginning of the TNB project, I passionately studied the technical and even aesthetic literature on theater. I also did my PhD with the title "Spațiul teatrului de dramă contemporan", I had Sică Alexandrescu and Liviu Ciulei (among others) as referees and I confess that it was not easy. From the very beginning I was attached to the idea of transformable theaters, where the contact between the spectator and the performance is more direct, where the theater man establishes the framework of communion and contact.

F.P.: In the transformation or becoming of the relationship between the performance and the spectator, what are the crucial moments of the theater program?

R.B.: Personally, I consider the appearance of Paladio's Olympic Theater in Vicenza (1575) or Aleoli's Farnese in Parma (1618) as acts of separation, of bringing the performance face to face with the spectator, the moment when a uniaxial relationship is established for a long time. For me, the three moments of explosion, of dramaturgic effervescence in the universal history of culture are astonishing.

The 5th century BCE in Ancient Greece, the century and place of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. 16th century, early 17th century, the Elizabethan era, the time and place of Marlow, Robert Green, William Shakespeare, Ben Johnson and John Ford. The 16th century in the Spain of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon.

Their scenic space was a purified, liberated stage set, intended almost exclusively for the movement of the actors, to which was added, not without explanation, a total and intimate participation of the audience in the performance. Consider that those three moments each lasted about 80 years. Nothing before, nothing after. That's why we were talking about real explosions, events that reverberate with great force to this day. From these convictions, the National Theater's composition included the Studio Hall (convertible into an Italian, Elizabethan and arena style) and the Atelier Hall, where the relationship between the show and the spectator is established by the theater man through the use of a theater with seating.

F.P.: What are the TNB's new halls like and what is their capacity?

R.B.: In the new project, all the halls are convertible and have a capacity of approx. 300 seats (in fact, this is the capacity that I think ensures real communication). Of course, the National Theater should and must have a classical hall. The one realized in the 1970s was a 900-seat hall, with a tiered ground floor and a row of boxes. In the current project, we opted to emphasize the classicism of an Italian-style hall so that the 900 spectators are distributed in three rows of boxes. The predominant color is that classic imperial red.

The Great Hall stage remains one of the largest and best equipped in Eastern Europe. Recently, the technicians of the TNB have realized a show set to music only by moving mechanisms, sliding trapdoors, sashes, contrabands, harlequins, rivals, etc. Personally, I think that this show can always be offered to the public with great success. It is spectacular and gives an idea of what lies behind a drama performance as a technical support.

F.P.: No matter how many and opportune the changes due to technical facilities are and prove to be, something in theater remains profoundly unchanged, perhaps magical. What is the major theme for a theater architect?

R.B.: I've become convinced that a good architect of theatrical halls, and I emphasize drama, is the one who succeeds and accepts to realize a neutral framework. An ensemble in which the final expression can be determined by the theatrical man, the director and the scenographer, according to the text, the interpretation and the will.

Such a framework, of course, cannot be of the uniaxial, Italian type, because in that case the relationship between the performance and the spectator is predetermined. Of course, even in this case, the architect can intervene to neutralize the spectators' space. Let's remember arch. Ruhnan (the author of some theatres in Germany in the 1960s) who spoke about the (immaterialization) dematerialization of theatrical space.

Once upon a time, while discussing this subject with Sică Alexandrescu, after I had debated idea after idea in support of and in the vicinity of this subject, as mucalit and malicious as he was, he said to me: you know, dear, you can play bad theater in any space, and good theater as well.

Since then, I always temper my theoretical effusions, but I try to give theater people as much freedom as possible.

F.P.: Going back to the TNB's initial context, what was the most difficult design decision?

R.B.: During the initial design period of the TNB, in the 60s and 70s, we oscillated between two options: the first was that the audience, before, during intermission and after the performance, should, by moving around the spaces outside the auditorium itself, offer a performance to those outside the building through a large glass surface. The second one, to which I had long been attracted, was that the audience that entered the foyer after or in the interval of the dramatic performance should participate with all the concentration acquired in the auditorium in another type of performance, a visual one.

For these reasons, three large tapestries were created on the three large concave interior walls of the Great Hall foyer. Very large in size, but perhaps at least as large in value. I have always thanked Gabrea, Ciobotaru, Nicodim, Iacob and Almășan for the extraordinary value of the visual spectacle offered to the public. As well as to Maitec for that extraordinary wood carving, disturbing, perhaps mystical, certainly full of meaning. The foyers are themselves conceived as a staggered series of boxes facing the tapestries, as a place of visual spectacle.

Hence, from an earlier conviction of mine, all the lobbies of the TNB halls will in fact be exhibition spaces.

Now I am satisfied that, for the time being, in the first foyers of the new halls, recently inaugurated, I have already managed to create a room - Ion Sălișteanu, with his admirable works donated by his family to the TNB on this occasion, and in another one to exhibit works (paintings and tapestries) from the theatre's dowry and I am waiting for Mărgineanu, Iacob, I would like Dan Hăulică to organize an exhibition behind the TNB.

F.P.: In a little while, the work at the TNB will be finished. Are there any worn or cast shadows?

R.B.: Any regrets? Yes, many.

Unfortunately, my biggest regret is that this new escapade on the TNB, begun in 2005, I was unable to do it again with some of the people I was with when I first confronted this work.

I have not worked (for various reasons) with Dan Deleanu, Traian Popp, Eugen Apostol, Ruxi Fotino, Dragoș Badea. But I was again together with Nino Teodorov and I. Filimon, and both of them, once again, made an extraordinary contribution. I regret to have to remember with sorrow my teachers H. Maicu, Nicolae Cucu, Alexadru Cișmigiu, Valentin Marinescu, Pimsi Bordenache, Ion Benghis Pollack, Ioana Rădulescu. I miss them both emotionally and professionally every day.

F.P.: Won't such a complex of functions - all, in fact, serving the theater, and not just any theater, but the National Theater of Romania - pose management problems?

R.B.: It certainly will. It is or will be, as a theater, the most complex construction. It will be a managerial challenge, but I am not nervous at all. Ion Caramitru already has an extremely interesting vision for the use of theater halls and exhibition spaces.

A vision which, in my opinion, is really at the level of a Romanian National Theater. I don't want to talk about this vision, I'm sure he will, when he considers it appropriate.