The Weltenbauer Award honours the most accomplished technical realisation of an artistic challenge in the context of a stage performance, show or event production. Yesterday evening, for the first time, the presentation took place at Stage|Set|Scenery. Katharina Thalbach gave the introductory speech.
Orpheus steigt herab, a production by Münchner Kammerspiele was the winner of the Weltenbauer Award which was received by Fabian Iberl, deputy manager and manager of Special Construction. The jury explained its choice - "The technical and visual solutions involved in this work were those that impressed us most. In terms of its form, content and technical complexity the stage design was outstanding and elegant in an unobtrusive manner."
The task of the Theatre Architecture competition held every four years by OISTAT is to create a temporary and multi-functional theatre for the city of Berlin. The venue decided upon was an area next to the River Spree between Holzmarktbrücke and Radialsystem in the vicinity of Ostbahnhof and behind the famous East Side Gallery. The jury received 197 submissions from 37 countries. It chose 26 designs which were featured in an exhibition at Stage|Set|Scenery.
The winners of the first prize, worth 5,000 euros and sponsored by Clark Door Ltd, J & C Joel Ltd, Wenger Corporation, Waagner-Biro Austria Stage Systems AG and Stage Technologies were Uros Novakovic, Sebastian Bartnicki and Erin Fleck from Canada.
Instead of a third prize the jury awarded a joint second prize. Worth 1,750 euros and sponsored by Müller BBM, Serapid Deutschland GmbH and Show Theatre Equipment Trekwerk BV/Show Canaca Group, this was awarded to Timothee Raviol and Priscilla Moreira de Almeida from Belgium and Alejandra Angeles and Enrique Flores from Mexico.
The winners of the fourth prize worth 500 euros and sponsored by SBS Bühnentechnik GmbH, Bühnenplanung Walter Kottke Ingenieure GmbH and Kunkel Consulting International GmbH were Zilvinas Stasiuleficius from Lithuania, Delphine Quach and Anouk Andrie from Switzerland and Piotr Blicharski from Poland.
(Jim Evans)
