An architectural case study research into the design of a building for the performing arts as social infrastructure. Buildings for the performing arts typically focus on facilitating paid professional performance. This thesis expands the definition of performance, challenging the traditional separation between performer and audience and rethinking the conditions of a stage. This is explored through the concept of architectural membranes and with the aim to bring people of different backgrounds together. The case study for the project is the Volksbühne theatre in Berlin, an existing monumental theatre of which the name translated from German means ‘People’s Stage’. Originally founded in 1890 as an organisation to make theatre going accessible to the working class, nowadays it serves a homogenous audience of the ‘typical theatre goer’. The objective of this project is to explore if an architectural transformation of the monumental Volksbühne can rethink its identity and turn the building into a proper people’s stage and as such take on the role of social infrastructure in society. A place for the people of Berlin to see performance and be a performer.

The close relationship of architecture with power caused it to play an important role in the Cold War conflict between the capitalist West and socialist East side of Berlin after World War Two. This research investigates how architecture was used as an expression of political ideology in the public architecture of Hermann Henselmann and Hans Scharoun in East and West Berlin. The research is conducted through a literature study and compares four case studies: the Philharmonie and State Library in the West, Haus des Lehrers and the Fernsehturm in the East. An exploration into the architectural context of Berlin, the theory of architecture as a political tool and the biographies of the architects result in an analysis of the case studies on three themes: monumentality, community and reference to the past. The research concludes that common goals which the GDR and FGR both aimed to achieve through architecture were to: gain the trust of their population, propagate themselves as the better side and to create a sense of identity among their population. Whereas the West mainly concerned itself with expression to the United States, the East primarily wanted to demonstrate its competence to the other side. Scharoun’s designs clearly fitted the FGR’s ideology whereas Henselmann’s designs were not always the result of his agreement with the political leadership or vision, but rather based on a deeper incentive to design architecture that suited the new socialist society.