Could the Great Banking Hall Become a Theater?
Leave it Anthony McDermid to come up with the most unique idea I’ve heard yet on what to do with the Great Banking Hall at First National Tower.
It’s difficult to explain this idea without a photo – and fortunately Anthony has provided us with a guide. The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester England is a theater within a theater. Could the Great Banking Hall serve as a similar host?
Here’s more information from Wikipedia:
This is a seven-sided steel and glass module that squats within the Great Hall of the Manchester Royal Exchange. It is a pure theatre in the round in which the stage area is surrounded on all sides, and above, by seating.The theatre can seat up to 700 people on three levels, making it the largest theatre in the round in Britain. There are 400 seats at ground level in a raked configuration, above which lie two galleries, each with 150 seats set in two rows.As the floor of the Exchange would not be able to take the great weight of the theatre and its audience, the module is suspended from four massive columns that also carry the hall’s central dome. Only the stage area and ground-level seating rest on the floor of the hall itself.
The theatre’s unique design was conceived by Richard Negri of Wimbledon School of Art, and was intended to create an unusually vivid and immediate relationship between actors and audiences.
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Comments
It is a cool idea, but I think it would clutter up the great hall. We need something that doesn’t distract from the space.
I agree with the others. Cool idea, wrong location. The Great Banking Hall should be a showpiece and the center of attention. A spaceship theatre would only distract from the beauty of the great hall. There are plenty of other places downtown another theatre could go. I like Anthony and I like theatre, but this is not a good idea for the Banking Hall.
Look at the restored train station in Kansas City. It has two great restaurants, a unique “outside insides the great hall” bar that is elevated 1 story and exposed to the rotunda below, a science museum etc. Very cool. My wife and I head there every trip to KC because the atmosphere is just very cool. Not enough room for all that but an upscale restaurant and a couple of attaction that bring school kids, families and fine diners would be great for downtown.
Yikes that’s a unique idea all right but it would destroy the aesthetic of the most beautiful room in the city.
No thanks.
Sounds like a cool idea, but it seems like you could put that lunar-lander-looking thing anywhere. Seems like if you do anything with the Great Banking Hall then it (the GBH) should be the star of the whatever you do, there is nothing else in OKC that has that sort of visual impact.
Humble opinion.