No tickets on people-friendly venues

by: Matthew Westwood
From: The Australian
May 07, 2013
ARTS centres used to be remote and slightly forbidding places: getting to them involved undertaking a pilgrimage or at least a change of perspective. It may have meant crossing a river (how many arts centres are on a city's far embankment?) or ascending a hill or podium, as at the Sydney Opera House.  On Melbourne's St Kilda Road, the cultural tourist undertakes an obstacle course that sounds dauntingly medieval. A moat and water wall confront the visitor at the National Gallery of Victoria, while entry to the Arts Centre auditoriums involves a descent to the underworld. Right or wrong, the architectural narrative of these places is one of the visitor earning their entry to a special or even sacred zone.
These days, the story is changing. Arts centres - multi-venue complexes that may include a lyric theatre, concert hall, playhouse and a black-box studio - want to throw open the doors, put themselves at the centre of community life, and no longer be regarded by the populace with deference, cringe or fear. Read more