Schauspielhaus Staatstheater Stuttgart, Germany

Object Type
Theatres

Client
Amt für Vermögen, Stuttgart

Architects
Klaus Roth Architekten, Berlin

Completion
2012

Expertises
Room Acoustics

The main venues of Staatstheater Stuttgart were erected between 1909 and 1912 by Max Littmann as a building complex consisting of the “large house“ (today known as the Opera House) and the “small house“ (today called Schauspielhaus). As the “small house“ was completely destroyed in World War II, it was replaced by a new building designed by the Stuttgart-based architects Hans Volkart, Bert Perlia and Kurt Pläcking between 1959 and 1962. The building with its heritage-listed octogonal auditorium has now undergone a total renovation. The building‘s structure, the technical equipment of the Schauspielhaus including stage, auditorium, foyers and staff areas were optimized and now meet the latest standards and requirements.

In the course of the refurbishment, the auditorium for an audience of 630 was entirely redesigned with a remarkably modern visual appearance. The Schauspielhaus‘ originally very high attenuation and the resulting low total loudness, in particular in the middle of the audience area, was changed fundamentally. The result is an unconventional, compact auditorium with a significantly enhanced raked seating. Acoustically optimized triangular elements of a remarkable visual appearance were installed for sound direction and sound absorption purposes so that by means of high-energy reflections, the loudness was improved considerably. Combined with the excellent direct sound transmission, an extraordinary speech intelligibili-ty makes the auditorium the perfect venue for plays and drama perfor-mances. The reverberation time, a criterion for a room‘s resonating qualities, was successfully prolonged to the level just ideal for speech.

Image Copyright
1 Brigida González
2 Brigida González
3 Brigida González
4 Brigida González