
A theater with a hundred curtains

Architecture competition – Unbuilt
Xinzhu (Taiwan)
Program: Transformation of an existing concrete sports field into a theater.
Is the curtain a defining element of the Theater?
A limit in space that opens, to let a story come in,
and then closes: the story disappears and the audience leaves with a new memory.
What kind of depth can we give to the limit of the curtain?
If there are a hundred different plays in a theater, could there be a hundred curtains?
1.
UNFOLDABLE PLACES

Curtains to form places everyone can fold and unfold: you, me, or the actors themselves…

Appearing within seconds, like a castle under a child’s blanket.

Places waving, wrinkling, changing,
limited in space but never in time.
Places without end,
gigantic…

…Gigantic and tiny.
Especially tiny, I hope…




…tiny enough we could almost touch
the stories happening within.



2.
PORTABLE PLACES

Performers could detach the curtains and bring them outside,
along with their plays,
as parts of a theater that expands into Hsinchu city:
to the parks,

to the living arts center nearby,

to the night markets,

…or simply on the facade of the theater itself.
3.
PLACES OF MEMORY
The curtains are customized theater sets that can be brought in by the performer themselves, made of various materials, images and patterns.
And once the show is over we will forget to remove them, and they will eventually form the fabric of an unique memory, the memory of a theater and all the stories that happened within.

