The Dream Factory explores the art and craft of the interior through the lens of contemporary opera set design. Students will engage with the dynamic interplay of architecture, performance, and storytelling– reimagining the interior for the 21st century and following in the long tradition of artists, architects, and fashion designers contributing to the subject through scenography and atmosphere in set production. Students will develop architecture from the inside out, addressing questions of effect, narrative, and materiality to create immersive, performative spaces that challenge conventional boundaries between architecture and theater.

Central to the course is the design of large-scale interior spaces–spatial environments that are often overlooked or dismissed in architectural discourse. Students will be encouraged to develop a strategy of seeing: learning how to observe, interpret, and respond to the performative and emotional dimensions of space. At large, the course will address a fundamental question in contemporary discourse: how do people inhabit space?
Students will renegotiate the relationship between contemporary architectural practice and the design arts, challenging conventional boundaries between built form and theatricality. The course as a whole will embrace indeterminacy, ultimately arguing for the impossibility of a singular “total image.”

The studio’s approach is relevant to all theatrical genres, but the primary focus will be on the example of set design for opera as it poses unique challenges, specifically how architecture and design can help to engage an audience in a performance that could be perceived as outdated or disconnected from the present. To remain relevant and engage contemporary audiences, theater–particularly opera–must evolve, embracing reinterpretation, desire, and dreaming as central to the practice of architecture. Opera can no longer be simply replicated in its original form; instead, each performance becomes an opportunity for creative reinvention. As a result, opera now offers two simultaneous experiences: the musical presentation of a classical masterpiece and a theatrical reinterpretation shaped by contemporary perspectives.

Students will design innovative large-scale interior spaces that merge traditional techniques with contemporary effects, culminating in projects that capture the emotional and visual essence of theater. The studio will not travel overseas, but rather, will visit performance spaces local to the Boston area where repeat visits are possible and welcome. For theoretical purposes, we will use the Rome Opera House as a departure point, examining how performance spaces adapt over time. Just as productions travel from stage to stage, adjusting to different venues and contexts, student proposals will be conceived as dynamic, adaptable, and responsive spatial systems for the 21st century audience.

More broadly, the course investigates a fundamental question in architectural discourse: why is architecture so often represented solely through its exterior, and what does this reveal about our understanding of interiority? Architects – long accustomed to shaping immersive environments in opera houses, theaters, and film studios- have increasingly been called upon to reimagine theater within our contemporary cultural contexts. Notable examples include Frank Gehry’s stage design for Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as the collaboration between Hussein Chalayan and Zaha Hadid for Così fan tutte.

Students will work individually. The class will include activities such as visits to theaters and performances in the Boston area.