The "mirror variant" favored by Ina Hartwig (SPD), head of the cultural department, for the new construction of the opera and drama vis-à-vis Willy-Brandt-Platz is rejected by the citizens' initiative Zukunft Städtische Bühnen. The initiative fights for the preservation and further construction of the existing double facility and points out that the production conditions and the audience's expectations of the theatre have changed: "Instead of facing up to a further development of the existing building that combines old and new, a modernist maximum solution in the worst sense of the word, fallen out of time is pursued and a cultural monument that creates identification is destroyed", criticises the group, which includes architects, preservationists, art historians and theatre scholars.
Rainer Schulze
Editor at the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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From the point of view of critics, the mirror solution ignores the fact that existing resources should continue to be used as far as possible to protect the climate. In a competition for the municipal stages, the tender should be formulated from their point of view so openly that, taking into account the monument protection, further construction is just as possible as a new construction solution. The now favored variant rejects the "ecological turn" in architecture and theater, but also the "crisis of representation" of urban society. She ignores all the experiences that have been made in recent years in the development of new municipal theatre models.
The initiative calls for more pragmatism
The initiative criticises, for example, the fact that the municipal stages are viewed separately from other cultural projects such as the Centre for the Arts and the Musikhochschule. The individual building programs continued the needs of the present and are likely to be outdated by the time they open.
The initiative calls for more pragmatism and an open-ended study on the city's theatre development. In her opinion, the first priority should be the rapid establishment of a joint production centre for the two houses and for the independent scene, for example in Bockenheim. It could initially serve as an interim and have opera, drama and Zentrum der Künste produced in the immediate vicinity of each other in the future: "This would improve the working conditions of the employees of our municipal stages, which have been unacceptable for years, as quickly as possible and enable a gradual interlinking of production in the houses and the liberal arts."
The initiative says: "Theatre and opera are a luxury that we should afford." However, if the construction projects were to become very expensive anyway, a sustainable, innovative solution would be needed in the centre of the city "and not the mere continuation of bourgeois forms of representation from the past century".