Variety, Conformity And Adaptability--Establishing An Architectural Understanding Of The Western Modern Theater Buildings

The theater buildings in China are now facing a significant challenge, as well as a great chance, which is brought about by the rapidly growing economy. Compared with the buildings of other types, however, the development of theater architectures is lagging behind. One reason is that the architecture design of theaters is influenced by many factors like the social, political, economic, cultural and technologic ones. In this context, the author tries to approach the problem by analyzing theater construction in western countries, reviewing their experiences, in hope to offer a useful reference for the future theater construction in China.Preface: To set forth the status quo of the theater architectures in China, and pose the problems to be solved.Chapter I: To analyze the varieties of western theater architectures by discussing different theater types and their strong or weak points.Chapter II: To address why and how theaters in the western cities are network distributed, by examining western theaters and theater complexes in the urban areas.Chapter III gives a close-up to the tendency of conformability, or of integration, in the development of western theaters, highlighting the theater's function, outer space, basic techniques and so on.Chapter IV analyzes the adaptability of the auditorium, the kernel of a theater.Chapter V focuses on some pre- and after events such as marketing and management, in hope that their effects on the theater architecture design could be revealed and used for reference.Finally, some suggestions on how to use the western experiences are offered in the Conclusion part.