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Theater: construction and wrecking

Few of us thought about what is on the other side of the curtain. But in order to achieve entertainment, production directors have to apply advanced technical achievements. In modern scenography, three fundamental tasks can be distinguished:

  • Creating dynamic scenes with moving objects that simulate, for example, the flight of a monster, the destruction of a building or the rocking of a ship on the waves;
  • Ensuring quick transitions from one picture to another with a massive change of scenery and actors;
  • Possibility of quick installation and dismantling of scenery to ensure the display of several different performances or shows within one day;

The photograph below shows the scenery for the Wozeck opera at the Bolshoi Theater. The house is hung on chain hoists and can rise and hide above the stage. A system of self-moving curtains has been made in front of the house , which allows the viewer to focus on individual rooms, while closing all the others.

Scenery for the opera Wozzeck

And this is the opera Death of the Gods at the Mariinsky Theater. Huge anthropomorphic monsters are able to move parts of their fiberglass body.

Scenery for the opera Death of the Gods

Stage magic


Let's look inside a well-equipped theater with horses on the facade.

Section of the Bolshoi Theater

As you can see, only a small part of the theater’s premises is accessible to the ordinary visitor. In areas located around the stage, as a rule, they hold decorations, which should be quickly replaced. The scene itself consists of lifting and lowering platforms, allowing you to change the terrain. Above the stage is the upper mechanization, consisting of dozens of hoisting mechanisms. The most popular of them is called - shtanketnoe (decoration) lift:

Scheme of the shtanketnogo (decoration) lift

As a rule, shankets set in increments of 200 mm. This is the minimum distance allowed by the Rules of labor protection in theaters and concert halls . In practice, such a triumph of lifting mechanisms above the stage looks like this:

Theater lifts

It is all controlled by a “remote control” with a touch screen. To prevent embarrassment during the show, all movements, including the speed and law of movement of each mechanism, can be rehearsed in advance and recorded on a “USB flash drive”.

Theater lifts

The scale of mechanization is such that, for example, the new stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg has more than 500 stage mechanisms with electric drives, and their total energy consumption exceeds 4 MW. But in addition to mechanical equipment, there is also a ventilation and air conditioning system, a fire extinguishing system, low-voltage networks and much more. Obviously, such a tight “packing” of equipment in a limited space requires delicate design.

The public procurement system as a playing field with a bias


Only in St. Petersburg there are more than 100 theaters , and in the whole country there are many times more. If we add art palaces, concert halls and clubs to these figures, the figure will turn out to be much larger. The construction and reconstruction of buildings for such institutions, the supply and maintenance of mechanical, lighting and sound equipment for the stage, the production of decorations is an entire industry in which tens and hundreds of thousands of people are involved.

The supply market for stage equipment and decorations looks more or less mature. Here you can choose both imported and domestic equipment for any wallet. But with the design of buildings and construction directly, things are much worse. It often turns out that the general contractor becomes organizations without experience working on objects with a stage complex. Common sense says: first make a small club, then grasp the palace of culture somewhere in the region. And if everything worked out well for you, you can allow yourself to take a contract for a major theater in the city with a million-plus population. The conclusion about why this does not work and people who do not know what is behind the scenes are at the helm, everyone does it himself.

Designing unique structures without losing track


Act one


The composition of the design documentation for the construction or reconstruction of buildings is established by government decree No. 87. Construction documentation contains many sections. The most common:

  • AR - architectural solutions;
  • KZh - reinforced concrete structures;
  • KM - metal structures;
  • ES - power supply;
  • OV - heating, ventilation and air conditioning;

At the very initial stages of design, a section of the AR (architectural solutions) appears, containing plans and sections of the building. These drawings are handed out to subcontractors and each one puts their own equipment on them: stage mechanics, power supply, water supply, ventilation, fire extinguishing ...

After that, some kind of thrash beginsThe most interesting. Most gene. for unknown reasons, contractors cannot combine all sections in one drawing to check for intersections. This leads to the fact that when the subcontractor arrives at the facility for installation of the equipment, it turns out that the place where he planned to mount it is already taken by another subcontractor and other equipment. Wanted to put a winch? And here is the duct meter to meter. Did you plan to put a control cabinet with electronics? Well, I'm sorry, here we have a pipeline from the fire extinguishing system. Do you want us to let him through your closet?

You can, of course, go to the general contractor and show your project, which he signed for you. In most cases, you will be offered either to get out of the situation yourself, or to pick up your junk and free the object. And then you will find the most fair court in the world.

Act Two


Registration of building documentation takes place in accordance with GOST R 21.1101-2013 Design documentation system for construction (SPDS) . It is important to note here that this system is different from the unified system of design documentation (ESKD), in which machine builders draw everything else that does not concern construction. To understand the specifics of such drawings, we will consider a fragment of a drawing of technological galleries of the scene of similar projects carried out in SPDS and ESKD.

Comparison of SPDS and ESKD

The ASAP instead of full kinds of design, made to scale, kalyakayut features of the structural scheme of the sticks and the sign of the cross section of the rods and effort in them. Separately, some typical nodes of the articulation of these rods can be shown.

The described simplifications in the image of building structures are used because in the future drawings of the KM brand (metal structures) go to factories specializing in the production of building metal structures. There, based on them, drawings of the KMD brand (metal detailing designs) are produced taking into account the specifics of a particular production. It turns out that the manufacturer can adjust the design to optimize its costs. This is logical and harmless if you are building a Lenta supermarket or some kind of sausage shop. Typical drawings of KM:

SPDS drawings

Attempts to place hundreds of units of various equipment in a confined space on flat drawings with sticks lead to sad consequences for installation. Bearing beams begin to herach grinders and gas cuttersfile a little bit in place:

Finalization of technological metal structures in the theater

By-pass rollers are put in place so that the rope does not cut too much:

Tap-off roller in the theater

In the place they come up with a way to fix the blocks to the beams:

The ridiculous mount of theater blocks

First, a channel appeared. Then there was the realization that they installed it low, so a square tube was welded on top. And then rope blocks arrived at the construction site and the question arose of how to fix them. So the corners and hairpins appeared. Well, for reliability, you can also catch on welding :

The ridiculous mount of theater blocks

No comment:

The ridiculous mount of theater blocks

The beams themselves under the blocks also often do not fall into their design places, lining, welding, paint appear ...

The absurd fixation of the sub-block beam in the theater

The same with technical galleries located around the stage. First, a low-quality project is made with the development of metal structures in SPDS. Then, according to such sketches, they work directly at the facility: they saw metal, weld, and paint. At one of the major construction sites in St. Petersburg, I was faced with the fact that the handrail of the fences of the galleries was made of a square pipe, although the project was laid round.

Theater Galleries

At first glance, it’s logical. The manufacturer decided that it is not advisable to mill the racks of the fence for welding a round pipe. This is an extra cost. Unfortunately, he was wrong. Purchased lighting equipment is hung on these handrails using standard clamps and it is mounted on a round pipe, not on a square one.

Theater Spotlight Mount

The cheap labor used in construction usually works in the twilight. It is foolish to expect accuracy from her, especially in winter.

Theater Galleries

In the hold of one well-known theater, water began to appear already at the moment when they began to drill holes in concrete under the lower mechanization, but they "let it go on the brakes." Today they talk about this in the news .

Breaking the usual patterns


The only way out of this situation is to make full-fledged projects with 3D visualization in companies that specialize in this. Pictures should be not only beautiful, but also based on the specifically selected equipment, profiles, welds, fasteners. It is necessary to insist that the metal structures provide for the manufacture and painting at the plant with subsequent assembly at the facility without fitting, without filing, without the use of assembly welding. Such experience in the country already exists . Technology galleries above the stage:

Theater Galleries

The division of labor brought people out of the caves. Therefore, the design of stage complexes should be carried out by a professional designer with knowledge of theatrical specifics, and metal structures should be welded by a professional welder on a flat welding table in a warm workshop. Even if the building is old and the walls are very curved, modern technology allows you to scan the contour of the wall, and then design all the metal so that it fits the curved wall with minimal gaps.

Theater Galleries

On this visualization, it may seem strange that the handrail has a large square section. In fact, it is a wooden beam made at the request of the customer. And under it are the so-called "filly" made of wood. They are designed to fix the hemp rope. Even in the most modern theaters, manual lifts are still used. This is considered the simplest and safest solution if you need to tighten some cable or calculate a heavy decoration so that it does not sway.

Theater Galleries

Winches with vertical drums are visible in the background of the visualization. Live they look like this:

Theatrical winch with a vertical drum

Designing using 3D visualization solves several important tasks at once:

  • The customer perceives information in color pictures much better and can better control the design process;
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Small theaters and clubs also have the right to modern approaches to design:

The project of technological metalwork for a small theater

It is often not easy to breed ropes without using a 3D model. And yet, on long flights they sag under their own weight and it is necessary to reckon with this.

Rope tracing in 3D, design of a cable-block system for suspending a fire curtain

Summarizing, I want to say that the sadness of the high cost of design work lasts much less than the frustrations of a poorly constructed stage complex. As a confirmation of my words, I bring a photograph of a major theater. From the first row of the balcony, almost nothing is visible:

View of the stage from the balcony of the auditorium

Finally, a few photos from the past of our homeland:

300-seat city club project

300-seat city club project

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