- PlaceLahti
- Completion 1983
- Decade1980s
- PeriodThe changing welfare society
- Year of selection2023
Lahti City Theatre is based on an architectural competition organised in 1973 won by Pekka Salminen with his proposal “Moi lahtelaista”. The theatre is located in Paavola, the old working-class area of the city, which was demolished to make way for a cultural centre.
The architect’s starting point was the building’s functionality and informality. A background reference for the design of the Lahti City Theatre can be found in a study trip by Salminen to the National Theatre in London. Its versatility and concrete architecture provided a model for the design of Lahti City Theatre.
Lahti City Theatre comprises a large and a small stage, a studio stage originally designed as a dance studio, a foyer stage and an outdoor auditorium. The theatre can accommodate just under 1200 patrons. The central space is formed by a courtyard, around which a workspace was created that is ideal for circulation and ensures plenty of natural light. The foyers overlook an old birch-lined boulevard via large windows. The public spaces have an exceptionally low ceiling height. They meander as dimly lit nooks and small stairs, replacing the traditional monumental staircases of cultural buildings.
The partly bespoke furniture designed for the theatre is by Yrjö Kukkapuro. The design team also included Irma Kukkasjärvi, who designed the stage curtain of the large auditorium and the greenish seating fabric as a pairing with the baroque-red carpet – a reference to the history of theatre. The auditorium has since been heavily altered.
The main construction material of the building is concrete. The facade elements were cast in diagonal patterned shuttering. The oblique lines continue in the stone paving in the theatre courtyard and are then repeated in the trusses of the theatre tower, the entrance canopy, the ceiling cassettes and the display windows.
The building became a total work of art, with references to the Jugendstil. The mystique of light and shadow, the materials, especially the concrete – described by the architect as the new natural stone – the rich detailing of the interior as well as the natural forms and colours of the furniture bring to mind the art of the early 20th century.
Lahti City Theatre was completed in the autumn of 1983 as part of the huge construction boom in municipal theatres, which stretched from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is a distinctive interpretation of the era, when theatre and its social function, the principles of theatre architecture, the hierarchy of the cityscape, democracy and equality were intensely debated.
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