DeLaMar occupies both the site of the former Nieuw De La Mar Theatre and an adjacent building, and posed one of the greatest challenges in theatre construction history.
Sandwiched between the busy Marnixstraat on one side and a canal on the other, room for maneouvre in construction and fit-out was at a premium, as building and technical teams worked around each around the clock to meet an extremely tight schedule.
The two buildings were knocked together down to basement level, leaving only parts of the historic façade, while interior was completely rebuilt to accommodate one auditorium seating 945 and a smaller theatre with 601 seats. So tight is space on site that much of the theatre's loose equipment, scenery and the like is stored in an Amsterdam warehouse.
It was a labour of love for the co-founder of entertainment giant Endemol and his wife, Joop and Janine van den Ende, who created an initiative entitled the DeLaMar VandenEnde Foundation. Reflecting a long tradition of cultural entrepreneurship, the tradition dates back to 1947, when the original private theater was founded by the husband of actress Fien de la Mar. Joop van Ende had begun his career as a stagehand at the age of 17.
With a specification drawn up by leading theatre consultants Theater Advies, ADB's Eurodim Twin Tech dimmers were chosen for their high performance, reliability and flexibility.
ADB's Dutch distributor Controllux installed four Twin Tech cabinets for the main hall, each fitted with 296 400µsec 3kW dimmers, 24 400µsec 5kW dimmers modules, and 40 sinewave dimmers plus twin CPUs.
For the smaller hall, a near-identical dimmer module lineup is provided in three Twin Tech cabinets, again with 400µsec filtering for optimum electrical noise performance and twin CPUs per cabinet. Each cabinet is configured with 200 3kW dimmers, 24 5kW and 40 sinewave dimmers.
Kuno van Velzen of Controllux comments, "It was a pretty challenging install, with difficult access to both stages via a long corridor to the main stage and a crane lift to the small stage upstairs. Everyone was working to a really tight schedule so it was quite fun."
(Jim Evans)
