'Walter Gropius had written that the architectonic problem of stage space had particular significance for work at the Bauhaus. 'Today's stage, which lets the spectator look at the other world through a window, or which seperates (itself from him) by a curtain, has almost entirely pushed aside the central arena of the past.' Gropius explained that this earlier 'arena' had formed an invisible spatial unity with the spectators, drawing them into the action of the play. In addition he noted that the 'picture-frame' deep stage presented a two-dimensional problem, while the central arena stage presented a three-dimensional one: instead of changing the action plane, the arena stage provided an action space, in which bodies moved as scuptural forms. Gropius's Total Theatre was designed in 1926 for the director Erwin Piscator, but owing to financial difficulties was never actually built.'

plagiated from 'performance art' R.L.Goldberg

Assonometria del "Total Theater" Gropius (1927). Immagine da "Il Teatro del Bauhaus".

uit: http://architettura.supereva.it/files/20001210/

La torre costruita nello stadio.

Il palco si trasforma in globo su cui avvengono proiezioni.

Walter Gropius on his synthetic "Total Theater" (1926++): cp. this site, which gives designs and relates the concept to London Millennium Dome and events at the Sydney Olympics

1936, at a Rome conference, Gropius said: "The contemporary theater architect should set himself the aim to create a great keyboard for light and space, so objective and adaptable in character that it would respond to any imaginable vision of a stage director; a flexible building, capable of transforming and refreshing the mind by its spatial impact alone"; "In my Total Theater. . . I have tried to create an instrument so flexible that  director can employ any one of the three stage forms by the use of simple, ingenious mechanisms."; "An audience will shake off its inertia when it experiences the surprise effect of space transformed." (cp. Futurists on their audience?) "Thus the playhouse itself, made to dissolve into the shifting, illusionary space of the imagination, would become the scene of action itself. . . if it is true that the mind can transform the body, it is equally true that structure can transform the mind." (In The Theater of the Bauhaus, 12, 14) cp. Gropiustheatre (handout).

Cp. Schlemmer, "Man And Art Figure" (1924): "The arena for [the] transfiguration [of the human form] is found in the constructive fusion of space and building, the realm of the architect"  (Theater, 17)

Why? ...because We need to break thru the borders between art, science, religion, theatre and so on. Our main problem for this is the way buildings are constructed. One way to achieve total theatre is thru radically recreating our building structures... Our stages now are very dictatorial and Mussolini-like. The performers stand on stage like führers. In a centre stage building this 'problem' can be resolved. It opens the possibility to a theatre where all the spectators are as well participants... And this is what happenings are all about!

more from the performansbook:

'Heinz Loew's Mechanical Stage, on the other hand, was designed to bring to the fore the technical apparatus which in traditional theatre 'is scrupulously hidden from the audience. Paradoxaly, this often results in backstage activities becoming the more interesting aspect of theatre.' Consequently Loew proposed that the task of the future theatre would be 'to develop a technical personnel as important as the actors, one whose job it would be to bring this apparatus into view, undisguised and as an end in itself.'

Manifesto
	The ultimate aim of all creative activity is a building! The decoration of buildings was once the noblest function of fine arts, and fine arts were indispensable to great architecture. Today they exist in complacent isolation, and can only be rescued by the conscious co-operation and collaboration of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must once again come to know and comprehend the composite character of a building, both as an entity and in terms of its various parts. Then their work will be filled with that true architectonic spirit which, as "salon art", it has lost. The old art schools were unable to produce this unity; and how, indeed, should they have done so, since art cannot be taught? Schools must return to the workshop. The world of the pattern-designer and applied artist, consisting only of drawing and painting must become once again a world in which things are built. If the young person who rejoices in creative activity now begins his career as in the older days by learning a craft, then the unproductive "artist" will no longer be condemned to inadequate artistry, for his skills will be preserved for the crafts in which he can achieve great things. Architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! For there is no such thing as "professional art". There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies. Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future together. It will combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form, and will one day rise towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as the crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith. WALTER GROPIUS			Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral, wood-cut for the Bauhaus Manifesto,

from:

http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/manifest1919.htm

and further:

http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/index.htm :

The Bauhaus masters on the roof of the Bauhaus building in Dessau. From the left: Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche, László Moholy-Nagy, Herber Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stölzl and Oskar Schlemmer.
		Bauhaus 1919-33 The Bauhaus began with an utopian definition: "The building of the future" was to combine all the arts in ideal unity. This required a new type of artist beyond academic specialisation, for whom the Bauhaus would offer adequate education. In order to reach this goal, the founder, Walter Gropius, saw the necessity to develop new teaching methods and was convinced that the base for any art was to be found in handcraft: "the school will gradually turn into a workshop". Indeed, artists and craftsmen directed classes and production together at the Bauhaus in Weimar. This was intended to remove any distinction between fine arts and applied arts.