Posted by Architectural project
Location _Nationaltheater Mannheim
Concept _The Mies Box
Horst Linde and Hans Schwippert saw then, in 1952, as reviewers of the architectural competition for the new ‚NTM _National Theatre Mannheim‘ clearly, that Mannheim’s political authorities suddenly hold, with Mies van der Rohe’s proposal, an unexpected, indeed historic opportunity in their hands:
Linde: ‚The far most strained version offered the suggestion of Professor Ludwig Mies van der Rohe … This theatre will function as an unifying forum of modern society. … The uniqueness of this design is the fulfillment of a higher human sense of living through conscious use of all spatial possibilities. People move and experience sovereign in these rooms.‘
And Schwippert’s speech at the Theatre Committee concludes with the words : ‚… The awesome work of Mies is more. Mies is to be realized. I must remind you that this man is the greatest living German architect, he is an architect of international standing.‘
As we know today, the final jury’s decision was negative for Mies: He was excluded from the second stage of the competitive process and the theatre finally was realized by an architect, who did not even participate in the first stage of the competition.
We propose to rescale and rematerialize Mies’ NTM-project as a temporary scenographic ARCHITEKTON on top of the existing NTM entrance pavillon.
OZA _Studio for Architecture and Scenography 