OTHER TECH

Photo by Phillip Ennis

Wrong The miniaturized buildings in this South Beach-themed theater make the seats next to them look too big. The buildings also look unrealistic when someone stands right in front of them.

MISTAKE NO. 1

Using an inappropriate scale. I didn't always land on my feet. One of the main challenges was to re-imagine a big theater in a much smaller space. You do that by manipulating scale. But if you don't have control of scale, things can look grotesque - like putting a very large hat on a very small head. The master of scale was John Eberson, the creator of the "atmospheric" style of theater architecture. His auditoriums would transport the audiences of the day to fantastic destinations: a medieval piazza in Italy, a courtyard in the Alhambra, a bazaar in Baghdad, all under a splendiferous "sky" that featured drifting clouds and twinkling stars.

One of my early assignments was to design a theater in Eberson's style, and it came from a client in Arizona who wanted me to recreate for him the vibrant Art Deco architecture of Miami's South Beach. I loved it. I pored over books about Art Deco design. I spent a couple of days taking photos of historic buildings up and down the streets of South Beach. I even did research at a local municipal office, trying to cram into my head as much information as I could about that era and what made its architecture unique.

It didn't work. While I was able to capture the style of the buildings in realistic, three-dimensional models, I didn't realize one thing: The scale was wrong. The buildings were too big to give you the illusion that they were at a distance, and at the same time they were too small when you stood next to them. They looked too much like miniature sets, which pretty much destroyed the semblance of realism that's so important in set design.

A few years later, I was able to get the scale right in another "atmospheric" theater, one with a Tuscan theme. But when I look at the photos of my first attempt in that style of architecture, I can't help but regret the missed opportunity. If I could only turn the clock back and do it again . . .

Photo by Phillip Ennis

Right In this Tuscan-themed theater, making the scale of the buildings almost life-size eliminated the risk of them looking fake. A very high ceiling is an important requirement to pull off something like this.