Cagliari, Lyric Theater

The building is located in an area on the edge of the historic district of Villanova, once belonging to the Agricultural Technical Institute and now destined for the Parco della Musica.
It was born from a national competition launched in 1964, in which thirty-four works participated, which presented heterogeneous solutions both linked to a nineteenth-century concept of theater with stages in various orders, and modern and avant-garde.
The palm of victory went to the “GGG” project by the Bergamo architects Paolo Galmozzi, Pierfrancesco Ginoulhiac and Teresa Ginoulhiac Arslan, who proposed a building derived from the theatrical culture of the moment, linked above all to post-war reconstruction: a room with an audience and two galleries.
At the end of complex and expensive events compared to the initial cost, the theater was built by the Technical Office of the Municipality, but inaugurated only in 1993, fifty years after the bombs that had destroyed the nineteenth-century Civic, located in the Castle. However, the building had many variations, such as the abandonment of the planned minor theater and a series of services.
The theater has its main front on Via Sant'Alenixedda and opens laterally onto an elevated square with the entrances that are arranged at different levels according to the complex topography of the place. It is defined by an exposed concrete volume with many full-wall openings that illuminate the foyer in different orders of seats, ending with a cover made of burnished copper.
Inside, there are different floors with stage spaces, administrative offices, rehearsal rooms, facilities, and of course the performance room, partly covered in wood. This is large and has good visibility in most of the orders of seats, located in a stepped audience and two loggias, capable of holding more than a thousand spectators.

Bibliography
“National Competition for the Municipal Theater of Cagliari”, in L'Arquitettura, 123, 1966, pp. 582-591;
“Projects for the Cagliari Opera House 1965", in Marcatrè, 19-22, 1966, pp. 260-264, 270-274;
B. Zevi, Chronicles of Architecture, VI, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1970, pp. 76-79; M. Tafuri, “Italian Architecture 1944-1981", in History of Italian Art.
Il Novecento, 7, Turin, UTET, 1982, pp. 506, 509;
M. Pintus, “Architecture”, in Cagliari Historical Districts. Villanova, Cinisello Balsamo, A. Pizzi, 1991, p. 165;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 157.