Main Architecture and Design La Comedie De Bethune: from Purple-red to Black

La Comedie De Bethune: from Purple-red to Black

In the northern France region of Nord-Pas-de- Calais a lot of attention paid to the development of culture. Despite the fact that there has not yet been fully overcome the consequences of the economic crisis, local authorities found the means to expand and rebuild the theater “Comedie de Bethune” (“La Comédie De Bethune”) at Bethune. Manuelle Gautrand Architecture Company began work on the new building of the theater twenty years ago, and at the end of the 1990s, was the first stage of construction. Today, the second part of the project is implemented, the competition for which was won by the same architects.

The theater building has a precious history. Firstly named “National Drama Center of the Nord Pas de Calais” then “Theater of the Northern Countries” and finally renamed “La Comédie De Bethune” by Agathe Alexis and Alain Barsacq who managed it from 1992, this theater distinguishes itself by its location in the heart of a territory marked by the crisis. Since the 1980s, culture has become a priority in the development of the Nord- Pas-de-Calais area; “La Comédie De Bethune” reflected the will of the elected representatives of the department to be equipped with a National Drama center.

Place of reference and artistic excellence where the theater can express itself in all its forms and reach all audiences, the building contributes strongly to the attractiveness of the area and represents the most emblematic cultural equipment of the city. Installed in a marquee with three hundred seats in 1992, the theater moved in 1993 in an old powder magazine, built by Vauban and refurbished into a «Studio Theater» which is still used nowadays.

There was initially a movie theater called «The Palace» built in the 1930s on the present site of “La Comédie De Bethune”. The facade of the building maintained by girders was all that was left when it was demolished in the 1990s.

In 1994, the agency MANUELLE GAUTRAND ARCHITECTURE won the competition for the construction of the theater. From the beginning, the project anticipated what has now become an extension: it already was in the form of two functional sections, the first one containing most of the program, which was then carried out, the second one immediately unrealizable because it was positioned on the corner of the plot, involving the demolition of a house.

From 2009, the corner house having been demolished, the extension of “La Comédie De Bethune” was able to be realized at the same time as the renovation of the existing theater. The agency MANUELLE GAUTRAND ARCHITECTURE, laureate of a new architectural competition for this extension, took advantage of this unique opportunity to improve and complete the global functioning of the theater and endow it with a rehearsal room allowing the presence of the artists on the site.

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