It was nothing less than the first step of a journey into a new dimension: when theatre reformer Adolphe Appia, father of Eurhythmics Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, architect Heinrich Tessenow, and artist Alexander von Salzmann met in Hellerau in 1911, their design for the Great Hall at the Festival Theatre created the ideal space for theatre in the twenty-first century. The stage built by Appia using flexible elements and von Salzmann’s shadowless room of lights made it possible to explore completely new modes of expression and staging. Le Corbusier, van de Velde, and Mies van der Rohe all drew lasting inspiration from this.
For Reconstructing the Future, the Appia stage with its original lighting design was rebuilt in the Festival Theatre for the first time, more than a hundred years after its conception. The project curated by Héctor Solari and the accompanying publication make the historical concept accessible to a contemporary audience and locate the Hellerau stage within the history of modernist theatre.