Draft:Chassé Theater



The Chassé Theater is the largest theater in the South of the Netherlands, just outside the historical centre of Breda, Netherlands. The theater receives visiting theatre company's and shows everything between broadway musicals, opera, ballet, symphonic concerts and stage play's including a exclusive selection of international performances.

Description
The theatre is named after the army General David Hendrik Chassé. It is situated in a modern building with a remarkable wavy roof and dates form 1995. Chassé Theater has tree theatre halls, tree restaurants and tree cinema halls going by the name Chassé Cinema. Annually the Chassé receives round 350,00 visitors. The predecessor of the Chassé Theater was the city theatre ‘Concordia’.

History
There a mentions of the frist theatrical activities in Breda since 1727. Round 1880 construction of the new 'Schouwburg' was started at the 'Van Coothplein'. With a loan of 125,000 in shares the 'Concordia' opened its doors on the 10th of July 1881. By the 50's the municipality council made plans for a new congress centre and theater. due to financial problems these plans were canceled and the municipality bought the Concordia theater, it became the official city theater in 1964. at the end of the 80's again innovation was wanted. Professor achitect Herman Hertzberger gained the assignment to design the new theater at the new location, between the 'Kloosterkazerne' (monastery barracks) and the newly built city office. a part of the neighboring building was built in the foyer and nowadays forms the theater cafe.

Theatre Auditoriums

 * Big auditorium (1,430 seats) (proscenium)
 * Stage parameters: width 38 meter, dept 17 meter, height 20 meter, 70x 500kg. computerized fly bars
 * Middle auditorium (665 seats) (proscenium or black box)
 * Stage parameters: width 12 meter, dept 11 meter, height 18 meter, 57 500kg. computerized fly bars
 * Small auditorium (212 seats) (black box auditorium)
 * Stage parameters: width 38 meter, dept 17 meter, height 5,5 meter, 5x 200kg. electric fly bars

Cinema Auditoriums

 * Cinema 1 (117 seats)
 * Cinema 2 (68 seats)
 * Cinema 3 (118 seats)
 * The small theatre hall doubles as cinema seating an audience of 212.

Architecture
The dutch newspaper de Volkskrant wrote;

"If a building had to be chosen that is decisive for 20th-century architecture, the Chassé Theater should be chosen without further ado and without delay.” 

The starting point of architect Herman Hertzberger was a sculpture from the swiss/Italian sculptor Alberto Giacometti named ‘Femme couchée qui rêve’ (Woman lying down dreaming, 1929). The sculpture was the inspiration for the wavy scape of the roof and ceiling in the foyer. In the assignment that was given to Hertzberger, stood the instruction to design two high stages. To prevent two large square blocks in the skyline of the city Hertzberger decided to cover them up with the big wavy roof.

the foyer was designed as a 'Theater Street' a place where theatre minded people can meet, see en be seen.

Immediately after the opening in 1995 architecture critics from home and abroad rushed to Breda to see the building. The international architectural journal ‘Domus' wrote; "a magical sense of space".

The 1995/1996 architecture yearbook placed the building on its cover and praised the revolutionary path taken by the architect: "Hertzberger shows liberation and space in the Chassé Theater”.