Architectural Competition for a conceptual design of the EPAC.

Location: Stara Zagora (BG)
Year: 2023
Project Team: Gabriele Corbo, Jacopo Costanzo
Collaborators: Lara Beraković, Verónica Díaz Gutiérrez, Sara Maccagno

For more than two thousand years, theater has accompanied human affairs with a powerful force. Nothing ever dies in a theater. Watching a play, we live and survive collectively. As living beings, we are in constant search for a stage to enact the theatrical tragicness of our daily affairs. To provide this was the intention of the proposal.

The building embodies the fundamental elements of a classic box-shaped puppet theatre; all of its individual parts interact with the others to create a dialogue, a scene, a whole.
The scenic tower functions as a scenography that draws attention to the site as a totem in sky. It hosts, starting from the bottom, the main hall, the rehearsal space and the artists’ residences, in an anticlimactic metaphor of the artistic experience: from their accommodation at the top, the artist descends to the public as the play unfolds from the rehearsal space to the stage. The purple elements invade the space connecting levels with the stairs, resembling a puppet laying on the stage after a performance. In the main theatrical space, consisting of foyer, main hall and summer stage, a system of soundproof curtains sets the scene whereby the curtain is never lowered, like a performance that never ends.

The topography of the mineral stage expands to the outdoor courtyard space and provides a contact between the public and the private flows.
A perimeter concrete box joins different spaces with the same fundamental feature: the capability to shapeshift to host incredible spectacles. Houses, museums, churches and theatres communicate our heritage, in content and style. It would be foolish not to protect and continue such a and vital force, safeguarding past, present and future. The setting arrangement and the chosen materials guarantee a fluid and immersive space.

Spatial configuration of the stages.
1. The performance is happening both in the main hall and the mineral ground.
2. The terrace is used as a balcony to watch the exhibition happening in the summer stage.
3. The mezzanine becomes an upper balcony to watch the performance happening in the foyer.
4. The mezzanine becomes a gallery to showcase the costume after the exhibitions.

South facade, East facade, North facade