Edinburgh to host pioneering architects and theatre designer exhibition

A MAJOR exhibition showcasing Britain’s most pioneering theatre designers, architects and artists is to go on display at an arts centre in Edinburgh after being lured to the city from the V&A museum in London.

Everything from costumes for live opera and video projections for stadium concerts to drawings and scale models for theatre sets will be going on display at Summerhall, which only opened last year.

Stage designs for Lada Gaga’s “Monsterball Tour”, the West End propduction of The War Horse and Antony Gormley’s plans for a major dance work at Sadler’s Wells theatre are among the highlights of the exhibition, which will be unveiled next month.

It was created by the V&A, which staged it earlier this year, in collaboration with the Society of British Theatre Designers.

The exhibition, which showcases the work of 30 practitioners, aims to show the transformation of their initial ideas into the final performance, including sound, lighting and multi-media installations.

Among the other stage designers who are featured are Ralph Koltai, Marie-Jeanne Lecca, Bob Crowley, Richard Hudson, Hyemi Shin and Paul Brown.

The exhibition, Gormley to Gaga: Transformation and Revelation, which runs from 15 December to 22 February, is one of the highlights of Summerhall’s forthcoming season of new exhibitions.

Rarely-seen photographs of celebrated artists Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, as well as an exhibition of harrowing images from Nazi-era Germany, will also go on display as part of the new season at the venue, created in the city’s former vet school for last year’s Fringe.