The study is aimed at reconstructing the historical process at the base of any significant theatre architecture. The modern space for the show is no longer intended as a direct derivation from classical types, but as a product of the transformation of the urban fabric in our cities. The research was conducted at the academies, state and municipal historical archives of numerous towns, in particular Rome, Milan, Mantua, Ferrara, Venice, London and Prague. All images are original. The work also includes the list of about 700 major Italian historical theatres.

The book follows on from Barkhin's Architecture of the Theatre Volume 1, which offers an overview of theatre construction from ancient Greece, through the Renaissance to pre-revolution and Soviet Russia. Volume 2 describes in detail the designs for Soviet theatres that were prepared for competitions all over the country, some of which were implemented but many of which are little known. Projects by the Vesnin brothers, Barkhin himself (with his son Mikhail), Moisei Ginzburg, and other architects, are shown through the eyes of the architect-author, himself immersed in the task of re-designing and building theatres in the aftermath of the war.

A beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated biography of one of Chicago's greatest lost buildings For six months in 1961, Richard Nickel, John Vinci, and David Norris salvaged the interior and exterior ornamentation of the Garrick Theater, Adler & Sullivan's magnificent architectural masterpiece in Chicago's theater district. The building was replaced by a parking garage, and its demolition ignited the historic preservation movement in Chicago. The Garrick (originally the Schiller Building) was built in 1892 and featured elaborate embellishments, especially in its theater and exterior, including the ornamentation and colorful decorative stenciling that would become hallmarks of Louis Sullivan's career. Reconstructing the Garrick documents the enormous salvaging job undertaken to preserve elements of the building's design, but also presents the full life story of the Garrick, featuring historic and architectural photographs, essays by prominent architectural and art historians, interviews, drawings, ephemera from throughout its lively history and details of its remarkable ornamentation--a significant resource and compelling tribute to one of Chicago's finest lost buildings. A seventy-two-page facsimile of Richard Nickel's salvage workbook is tipped into the binding.

* First English translation of seminal work on Soviet theaters by architect Grigory Barkhin - a key figure in Soviet architecture from the 1920s* Originally published in 1947, it became an essential work for universities and art colleges and was translated into German and Chinese* Little-known designs for theaters all over the Soviet Union, including Smolensk, Alma-Ata, Kazan, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don and many othersIn the 1930s Grigory Barkhin became particularly interested in theater architecture, and this culminated in the publication in 1947 of a two-volume work, Architecture of the Theatre. This was the most comprehensive and deeply researched study of theater architecture of the time. The first volume follows a historical timeline, from early classical theaters to some of Europe's national treasures - La Scala, Opéra Garnier, Vienna State Opera - and the development of theater architecture in the Russian Empire. The second half of the book is devoted entirely to Soviet theater architecture of the pre-war period, in particular the five-star design of the Red Army theater in Moscow, and competition projects for theaters in Rostov-on-Don, Sverdlovsk and Minsk, which Barkhin himself designed with his son Mikhail. These projects can be seen as the cornerstone of the development of Soviet architecture of the time. In this remarkable book, published here in English for the first time, Barkhin sets out a blueprint for architecture that combines an understanding of the subject with a bold and uncompromising vision.

If the city is the theatre of urban life, how does architecture act in its many performances? This book reconstructs the spatial experiments of Art et Action, a theatre troupe active in 1920s Paris, and how their designs for theater buildings show how the performance spaces interacted with actors and spectators according to their type.

In this book, Eugene J. Johnson traces the invention of the opera house, a building type of world wide importance. Italy laid the foundation theater buildings in the West, in architectural spaces invented for the commedia dell'arte in the sixteenth century, and theaters built to present the new art form of opera in the seventeenth. Rulers lavished enormous funds on these structures. Often they were among the most expensive artistic undertakings of a given prince. They were part of an upsurge of theatrical invention in the performing arts. At the same time, the productions that took place within the opera house could threaten the social order, to the point where rulers would raze them. Johnson reconstructs the history of the opera house by bringing together evidence from a variety of disciplines, including music, art, theatre, and politics. Writing in an engaging manner, he sets the history of the opera house within its broader early modern social context.