The New Meyerhold Theatre: Visualising A Lost Architectural Experiment

In 1938 the construction of a new theatre in Moscow conceived by the Russian theatre director Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold (1874–1940) was abandoned. This essay charts the findings of a research project that examined Meyerhold’s lost architectural experiment using computer-based 3D visualisation as a research method. The overall aim is to offer a record of the decision-making processes inherent within the practice of visualizing an unrealized architectural project. Focused on the practical implications had the project been realized, the processes of archival research and visualisation were undertaken simultaneously by the author (as both modeller and researcher) and the resulting images are presented as a ‘platform’ or ‘document’ for interpreting the surviving source material: from Meyerhold’s writings and the influence of his previous scenographic work, to incomplete architectural drawings and written accounts by the architects. In that regard, this essay offers the first detailed historiography of the possible architectural, dramaturgical and scenographic implications of the new theatre and its significance for understanding Meyerhold’s legacy today.