Visual Arts

The first scientific study of Rome’s first permanent theatre. Comprehensive documentation of all surviving remains, supplemented by new limited excavation at specific points targeted by our initial analysis. Creation of a definitive series of site-plans, sections, elevations keyed to a complete photographic record, and measured drawings. We have prepared an extensive archaeological register recording the details of every known artefact discovered on the site of the theatre complex for the past five centuries.

CACHe is a major research project into the origins and history of British computer arts.

We are based at the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck, University of London and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The substantial government funding for our project indicates the level of interest in creating an historical framework for this period. CACHe began its work in 2002.

The Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza, Italy - still existent and well preserved - was built in 1580-85 for the local Accademia Olimpica (founded in 1556) on a plot provided by the city council. It was the first permanent theatre to be built in Europe since antiquity. The stage, which resembles a façade of a Renaissance palace, and the semi-oval sitting area were designed by the architect and founding member of the Accademia, Andrea Palladio (1508-80). He died soon after the work began; his son, Silla took over.

Henri Labrouste (1801-75) is best known as the architect of two important public buildings in Paris, both libraries. The Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, completed in 1851, demonstrated Labrouste's unconventional use of classical elements, much disputed at the time, and his structural innovation of introducing an exposed iron frame. The Bibliothèque Nationale, completed in the year of his death, is renowned for its eclectic reading room reminiscent of a Seljuk mosque: a light, top-lit round space with slender cast-iron columns, which support a multitude of small domes.