Contemporary Odeon Buildings as a Sustainable Environment for Culture

The subject of this study is contemporary odeons in Poland, where 11 covered amphitheaters (odeons) have been built since 2005. The odeons were selected from a wider collection of 57 functioning amphitheaters. The study collected data on location, form, function, and construction. The data sources included the literature, archival research, design documentation, and competition entries. Descriptive and graphical comparative analyses of the phenomena, based on the statistics for completed structures and on design experiments in the case of unbuilt structures, were the two main research methods used in this study. The emergence and development directions of the typology of open cultural spaces from amphitheaters to odeons are presented in a global and regional context. Their interrelationships, affecting form and function, were also analyzed. The influence of high-end materials that were used to create these complex, large-scale spatial structures, and their impact on the environment, has been presented. The contemporary roofs covering the entertainment and stage complex were analyzed in relation to environmental factors, determining the location of the odeons. The functional aspects of these buildings and their cultural significance on a local, regional and global scale were discussed. The odeon in Biała Podlaska, built in 2019, was chosen as a case study to show, in detail, the complexity of the formation of contemporary odeons. In the discussion on the direction of the further evolution of open spaces for culture, an example of an unrealized competition design proposal of mobile roofing forms for the eighteenth-century amphitheater in the Royal Baths Park in Warsaw, Poland, was presented. The conclusions emphasize the environmental, spatial, functional, social and economic values of the establishment and functioning of contemporary odeons as open spaces of culture that are compliant with the principles of sustainable development.

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