Berto_Tony_201307_PhD .pdf - University of Guelph

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architecture including: a former Orange hall – now filled with Asian shops and grocery
stores – an Anglican church, senior’s home, second hand stores and the Vancouver Police
Museum, which lies immediately to the west of the theatre. The theatre's surroundings
create an eclectic atmosphere which codes the area’s history, the theatre’s proximity to
Chinatown and the area’s demographics.
The theatre’s streetfront displays posters and advertisements. A wheelchair ramp
provides access to the entrance, a few feet above street level. Inside, an inner, open
courtyard and bar presents an area for preshow socialising. The lobby reflects the
structure’s initial function by featuring exposed brick, wood wainscoting and other
construction elements of the building’s original architecture. While the theatre is marked as
a performance space by its internal infrastructure and its large, exterior sign, its roots as a
fire hall are still obvious. Ric Knowles writes about how non-traditional theatre buildings in
non-traditional locales, such as the Firehall, are as ideologically coded as designed-astheatre
structures (Knowles Reading 65-70). He notes however, that “such coding is more
likely to be community oriented, populist, or even overtly resistant to dominant ideologies
(71). The Firehall structure appears to reflect ideas of civic and municipal heritage in its
original architecture, while its adaptive reclamation appears to invite and embrace its
contemporary local community, and suggests involvement in the neighbourhood.
Performance Space
The main performance space at the Firehall is described as “an intimate black box
studio with the stage at floor level and a single raked bank of seating for 136 (in standard
configuration) situated in a converted heritage building” (“Technical”). The seats are softly
upholstered, but held on aluminum planks as part of a flexible system that allows for