Abstract:

Except for the largest and wealthiest urban centers, it is an undisputed fact that the raison d'etre for design of multiple-use facilities for the performing arts in municipalities of smaller size and relative wealth is an economic necessity for capital as well as for operational funding. Solutions to this many-faceted, much-disputed and much-maligned problem vis-a-vis owners, architects, and engineering consultants have been and continues to be many and varied. Overall in the USA, two schools of thought have emerged. One is continuation of the traditional static architectural approach inherited from the 18th-century high baroque. The other originated and developed by this consultant and favoring a dynamic engineering approach is, instead, firmly rooted in modern times. This paper, accompanied by concise graphic exposition of certain seminal historical and related contemporary realized recent designs and two proposed unrealized designs is an extrapolation into the next century of the author's technologically based, as opposed to the conventional architecturally based, approach to the problem.