Laboral City of Culture

In his brief treatise La obra arquitectónica del Orfanato Minero de Gijón (Fundación José Antonio Girón, Gijón, 1948, s.p.), Luis Moya Blanco twice referred to work on the theatre.

In the first, he writes:

Now let us deal with the theatre. (…) The form chosen for that at Gijón is the normal one for theatres where optimum conditions as regards view and acoustics are required, as well as a short distance between the stage and the furthest seat. The latter is necessary in theatres where, as in this one, all the seats must be of the same category, that is to say, where no dress circle, high and at a far remove from the stage, is acceptable to cater for second category seating. Here, the distance from the last seat to centre of the proscenium arch (on the ground) is to the order of 30 m and a mere 41 m from the back of the stage. These measurements reflect that which is acceptable in a theatre of this type, and require, as has been explained for the church, a special arrangement for walls and roofs to ensure good acoustics, given that these measurements exceed the normal reach of the voice in the absence of resonators.

Given that it is not possible to lengthen the hall for these reasons, its capacity is achieved, as is the norm in theatres, by increasing its width; a solution which, on the other hand, is not to be recommended for cinemas, given that it gives rise to certain points from which the screen view is too sidelong. In this case, there are very few defective, end side seats, given that the forum is not excessively wide.

The theatre has the following seating capacity: there are 1,046 front stalls that take up a surface area of 606.48 m2, each measuring a 0.58 m2, including aisles. This is the normal measurement whenever the forum in question is not too narrow. It is, therefore, one of the largest front stalls areas in Spain, boasting a seating capacity greater than that of the Teatro Real in Madrid. Such a layout is required in order to enable the seating of the 1,000 students and their teachers together, under equal conditions. A total of 150 people can be seated comfortably in the main boxes, and 72 in the upper ones. The dress circle has 386 seats, thus the total seating at a height comes to 608. If we add the 1,046 front stalls, we get a total theatre capacity of 1,654, all of which are good quality seats.

Later on Moya writes the following Note on the assembly hall:

This building is first and foremost an Assembly Hall. Its use as a theatre or cinema is secondary. Indeed, its acoustics must be better, on a level of those required for an opera house, in order to enable the speaker to be heard from any seat. Achieving this shall also mean that the hall will serve to put on theatre shows and musical concerts, except for this one peculiarity: to hear a speaker well requires minimum reverberation in the hall, which must increase in duration depending on the use of different musical instruments. Experiments and studies of this increase in reverberation time have been done for many years. Therefore, a certain incompatibility arises as regards the best conditions to hear a speaker, or an orchestra of many musicians. In some cases resort has been had to hanging thick curtains in certain previously identified spots whenever the occasion involves the hearing of a sole voice, given that these absorb sound and reduce reverberation time, and removing them whenever music is to be heard in the theatre. Here the prior calculation has been done on the basis of a quite short reverberation time, which is good for the voice, but not short enough to impede music being heard, in which, so as not to distort the notes, these must be accompanied by their harmonics, which are lost in very absorbent halls, also known as “deaf” halls.

In order to achieve this goal, the hall vault has been made to be completely reverberative, as well as the ceilings that are located under the boxes and the upper circle. The back wall, which is curved, has been made to be fully absorbent, while the straight, side walls have been designed with alternating absorbent strips made of cork, as in the church, and reverberative ones made of stone and glass. As far as the capacity and form that have been chosen for the building are concerned, these issues have been dealt with in the notes on its dimensions. Therein it has been explained that, as we are dealing with a stalls area of extraordinary size, this has been given the normal form peculiar to large modern show rooms, wide but not very deep, so as not to the leave the back seats so far away as to impede the sound and vision of these audience members. It has also been said that this is not the best solution for cinemas, given that the side seats provide an extreme sidelong, and thus distorted, view of the screen. This problem only affects very few seats here. It is worthwhile repeating here that the hall has been designed in such a way that the centre’s 1,000 students and their teachers sit in the stalls, while guests and ex alumni are seated in the boxes, or the upper circle, thus the latter could not be built, as is normally, the case, as second rate seating, under worse conditions than the rest. On the contrary, these areas have been designed to include all comforts, thus the space available has not been abused, nor has it been overly extended, given that if this had been the case, it would have exceeded the limits set for good vision and acoustics.

The foyers, staircases and rooms that are attached to this hall are very big in the design, and this has been done because they have to serve as a reception area for the entire complex, thus the balcony over the entrance portal will be the place to accommodate those presiding over the acts that are held in the central square. The rooms that give on to this balcony and the adjacent ones will be perfectly suited to holding receptions, thus the idea is to base its decoration on works of modern art, to which end this part of the project, as well as the church, will be able to count on the collaboration of the foremost artists and sculptors..

The stage is bigger than those at nearly all of the Madrid theatres, thus enabling the moving about of sets, where necessary, with great ease. An elevator system was not used for the pit, which is extremely expensive and not suitable for this case. Nevertheless, stage wings have been designed that can serve to change sets on rollers, an extremely modern system, currently all the rave in foreign theatres, which makes it possible to comfortably have three sets ready at the same time: one at centre stage, and two at the wings, hanging from rails that travel crosswise along the whole. The sets that have already been used are raised to the gridiron, or rolled to one side, depending on the particular cases. This simple machinery has not been designed at present, in the belief that there is no need to install it from the beginning, but the brickwork has been done in such a way as to enable its installation whenever thought appropriate.

As far as fire protection is concerned, measures currently in force have been taken with respect to the metal curtain, the layout of the projection booth, access points, staircases, exits and other parts.

On the stage a type of stonework, apse with a conch has been included. The aim is to achieve, albeit very economically, the equivalent effect to that of the “Fortuny Dome”. Moreover, it is fireproof, the only inconveniences being the need for a newly designed stage, which is our case, and that it not be moveable, which has not represented any problem in reality, if it is built in the right place and set design layouts bear its position in mind.

The hall is curious in the sense of possessing natural light, thus we did not think it very reasonable to shut out external light completely in a place that is not going to be used a lot at night. Whenever films are to be shown during the day, it will suffice to pull the tight closing curtains that are to be fitted in all of the gaps, the model for which, is quite well known as a result of having been used everywhere during the last war.