This volume explores connections between architecture and theatre, and encourages imagination in the design of buildings and social spaces. Imagination is arguably the architect's most crucial capacity, underpinning memory, invention and compassion. No simple power of the mind, architectural imagination is deeply embodied, social and situational. Its performative potential and holistic scope may be best understood through the model of theatre. Theatres of Architectural Imagination examines the fertile relationship between theatre and architecture with essays, interviews and entr'actes arranged in three sections: Bodies, Settings and (Inter)Actions. Contributions explore a global spectrum of examples and contexts, from ancient Rome and Renaissance Italy to modern Europe, North America, India and Japan. Topics include: the central role of the human body in design; the city as a place of political drama, protest and phenomenal play; and world-making through language, gesture and myth. Chapters also consider sacred and magical functions of theatre in Balinese and Persian settings; eccentric experiments at the Bauhaus and 1970 Osaka World Expo; and ecological action and collective healing amid contemporary climate chaos. Inspired by architect and educator Marco Frascari, the book performs as a Janus-like memory theatre, recalling and projecting the architect's perennial task of reimagining a more meaningful world. This collection will delight and provoke thinkers and makers in theatrical arts and built environment disciplines, especially Architecture, Landscape and Urban Design.

Marco Frascari believed that architects should design thoughtful buildings capable of inspiring their inhabitants to have pleasurable and happy lives. A visionary Italian architect, academic and theorist, Frascari is best-known for his extraordinary texts, which explore the intellectual, theoretical and practical substance of the architectural discipline. As a student in Venice during the late 1960s, Frascari was taught and mentored by Carlo Scarpa. Later he moved to North America with his family, where he became a fulltime academic. Throughout his academic career, he continued to work on numerous architectural projects, including exhibitions, competition entries, and designs for approximately 35 buildings, a small number of which were built. As a means of (re)constructing the theatre of imaginative theory within which these buildings were created, Sam Ridgway draws on a wide selection of Frascari's texts, including his richly poetic book Monsters of Architecture, to explore the themes of representation, demonstration, and anthropomorphism. Three of Frascari's delightful buildings are then brought to light and interpreted, revealing a sophisticated and interwoven relationship between texts and buildings.

Marco Frascari believed that architects should design thoughtful buildings capable of inspiring their inhabitants to have pleasurable and happy lives. A visionary Italian architect, academic and theorist, Frascari is best-known for his extraordinary texts, which explore the intellectual, theoretical and practical substance of the architectural discipline. As a student in Venice during the late 1960s, Frascari was taught and mentored by Carlo Scarpa. Later he moved to North America with his family, where he became a fulltime academic. Throughout his academic career, he continued to work on numerous architectural projects, including exhibitions, competition entries, and designs for approximately 35 buildings, a small number of which were built. As a means of (re)constructing the theatre of imaginative theory within which these buildings were created, Sam Ridgway draws on a wide selection of Frascari's texts, including his richly poetic book Monsters of Architecture, to explore the themes of representation, demonstration, and anthropomorphism. Three of Frascari's delightful buildings are then brought to light and interpreted, revealing a sophisticated and interwoven relationship between texts and buildings.