La Gaîté Lyrique () is a digital arts and modern music centre opened by the City of Paris in December 2010, located at 3-5 rue Papin in the 3rd arrondissement."Bienvenue"
at the La Gaîté Lyrique website. Retrieved 14 August 2011. The centre is on the site of the former Théâtre de la Gaîté, incorporating the facade, entrance and foyer of the original theatre. The auditorium of the theatre was demolished in 1989 for an amusement park. The refurbishment lasted from 2004 to 2011 under the architect

Manuelle Gautrand Manuelle Gautrand (born 1961) is a French architect."Manuelle Gautrand"
, ''a10.eu''. Retriev ...

. The General/Artistic Director was Jérôme Delormas. The venue is directed by Marc Dondey since 2016.

History

Following

Haussmann Hausmann is a German word with former meanings "householder" and "freeholder" and current meaning "house-husband." Hausmann (Hausman), Haussmann (Haussman), Haußmann, Hauszmann, etc. are German-origin surnames that may refer to: Hausmann * C ...

's modernization of Paris and the destruction of the theatres on the

boulevard du Temple The Boulevard du Temple, formerly nicknamed the "Boulevard du Crime", is a thoroughfare in Paris that separates the 3rd arrondissement from the 11th. It runs from the Place de la République to the Place Pasdeloup, and its name refers to the ne ...

, the last of a succession of playhouses called the Théâtre de la Gaîté was built in the rue Papin. It opened on 3 September 1862. The building was designed by the architects

Jacques-Ignace Hittorff Jacques Ignace Hittorff or, in German, Jakob Ignaz Hittorff (, ) (Cologne, 20 August 1792 – 25 March 1867) was a German-born French architect who combined advanced structural use of new materials, notably cast iron, with conservative Beaux ...

and Alphonse Cusin, with an 1800-seat auditorium decorated by Félix Jobbé-Duval. Concentrating on operettas, it also became known as the Gaîté-Lyrique and was at its height during the

Second French Empire The Second French Empire (; officially the French Empire, ), was the 18-year Empire, Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the French Second Republic, Second and the French Third Republic ...

Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera '' ...

was its director from 1873 to 1874,Lamb 1992. In 1921, 1923, and 1925 the

Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. A ...

Serge Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pat ...

performed in the theatre (Simeone 2000, pp. 201, 203). After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the theatre enjoyed success under its directors Henri Montjoye and his wife Germaine Roger. In 1974, the '' Carré Silvia-Monfort'' and the first circus school based themselves here for a time. The theatre became bankrupt and closed. In the early 1980s the dome of the main auditorium was threatening to collapse, and it was reinforced with concrete. During the following years it was largely destroyed and transformed into an

amusement park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

, , by

Jean Chalopin Jean Chalopin (born 31 May 1950) is a French bank executive. During the 1980s and early 1990s, he produced a range of successful animated series, first as the founder and president of the production company DIC, then at his newly created compa ...

."Historical: The Venue"
at the La Gaîté-Lyrique website. Retrieved 11 August 2011. The main auditorium, holding 1800, and the orchestra pit large enough for 60 musicians were among the parts of the building that were lost. The amusement park was only open for a few weeks.

General facilities

La Gaîté-Lyrique is 35 metres wide, 60 metres in length, and 26 metres tall with a total of 9,500 square metres of usable floor space. The building has five levels accessible to the public and 2 private levels at the top, which include shops for artists. There are 5 elevators and 3 service elevators. Other areas include the reception, the historical foyer (above the reception), three performance venues, exhibition spaces, a resource centre, a video gaming area, artist spaces, and a

boutique A boutique () is a small shop that deals in fashionable clothing or accessories. The word is French for "shop", which derives ultimately from the Ancient Greek ἀποθήκη (''apothēkē'') "storehouse". The term ''boutique'' and also ''d ...

. Most of these areas are designed to be adaptable to new uses and include movable floor and wall elements. Small movable and recombinable dodecahedral units, called "éclaireuses", are available for use as, for example, dressing rooms, offices, technical annexes, installation spaces, or even parts of stage sets."Facilities: The Venue - Facts and Numbers"
at the La Gaîté-Lyrique website. Retrieved 14 August 2011. "Architectural Project: The Venue"
by Manuelle Gautrand at the La Gaîté-Lyrique website. Retrieved 14 August 2011. Since the building is surrounded by over 100 residences, acoustic isolation was a high priority. It was designed using the " box within a box" principle. The performance spaces, being the most sonically intensive, were placed in the center and are surrounded by three successive layers of more external spaces. Utility spaces and vertical passages are located between the two outer layers. There is only one "ceremonial" staircase connecting the ground floor and the first floor. Otherwise each floor is as large as possible to provide the greatest flexibility in the use of the space.

Performance venues

The Large Hall (Grande Salle) is above the main floor at the back of the building, has a capacity of about 750 standing places or 308 when seated. It includes telescopic tiers (

bleachers Bleachers (North American English), or stands, are raised, tiered rows of benches found at sports fields and other spectator events. Stairways provide access to the horizontal rows of seats, often with every other step gaining access to a row ...

) for seating which can be folded away sideways. Projection screens can be mounted at various levels on any of the four walls, and a large variety audience and stage setups can be accommodated. There are also four large screens the size of each wall which allows for the possibility of total

audience immersion Audience immersion is a storytelling technique which attempts to make the audience feel as though they are a part of the story or performance, a state which may be referred to as "transportation" into the narrative, permitting high levels of suspens ...

in a projected space. The exterior is covered with mirrored panels, rendering it instantly recognisable and capable of complementing installed artwork. The Small Hall (Petite Salle), located on the lowest level at the back of the building, can accommodate 70 seated and 150 standing places and can be used in conjunction with the exhibition areas or as a separate audio/visual venue. The walls can be taken apart, and the floor panels can be mounted at different levels to create various platforms and tiers. The colour scheme is in shades of gray so as not to conflict with the artists' installations. The Auditorium is more traditional with 130 fixed seats, a projector and control room, and a 5-metre screen at the bottom front of the hall. It is located between a large exposition space on the lower level at the front of the building and the petite salle at the back. There are entrances on the ground and first floors, and it is directly accessible from the rue Papin.

Resource centre

The resource centre functions as a modern library. It is located at the back of the building, above the Petite Salle and below the Grande Salle. It has a capacity of 100 and 14 consultation stations. The collections include 1500 books, 200 periodicals, 150 art catalogues, and other material on topics such as digital art, contemporary music, new art technologies, video games, dance, set design, street art, skating, and graffiti, and also includes digitized periodicals, documents, playlists, blog lists, and other items relating to guest artists and programs, as well as video games. There are also facilities for listening. The resource centre also presents workshops, educational courses and training in

information retrieval Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the process of obtaining information system resources that are relevant to an information need from a collection of those resources. Searches can be based on full-text or other co ...

."Practical information: Resource Center
at the La Gaîté-Lyrique website. Retrieved 14 August 2011.

References

;Notes ;Sources * Block, Maurice, editor (1881). ''Annuaire de l'économie politique et de la statistique'', volume 38. Paris: Guillaumin
View
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Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

. * Doussot, Michel ''et al.'' (2009). ''Le Petit Futé Paris sorties 2010''. Paris: Petit Futé. . * Faris, Alexander (1980). ''Jacques Offenbach''. London: Faber and Faber. . * Lamb, Andrew (1992). "Offenbach, Jacques" in Sadie 1992, vol. 3, pp. 653–658. * Simeone, Nigel (2000). ''Paris: A Musical Gazetteer''. New Haven: Yale University Press. .

External links