The Principal Theatre, under construction: a privileged visit of Jai Alai to the 'Pantheon' of the Venus Dome

BarcelonaThe Rambla de Barcelona under construction looks like an anthill during a peak of stress: workers, tourists, and Barcelonians struggle not to bump into anyone as they go up and down. The Principal Theatre is also undergoing a complete renovation, and these days the promoter, Josep Maria Trénor, has opened the construction site doors for the first time to a group of journalists. The theatre's facade is covered from top to bottom by a metal scaffolding. The iron protects it, but it's intimidating: the building is barely visible.

Everything begins to change on the way to a back door of the Principal, through the shady Carrer de l'Arc del Teatre, until entering the building via Carrer Lancaster. Inside, there is also the noise of machines, but the surprise of entering the first of the spaces on the tour prevails: the old Teatro Latino. The promoters have allowed reporters in, but not photographers, so we will have to wait to see recent images. "Inside, the Principal Theatre is not a pure building, but rather made of many layers. This also makes it interesting, and now is when everything is starting to become clear, but it's still a labyrinth," says architect Enric Batlle, founder of the Batlle i Roig studio together with Joan Roig. It is planned that, from the autumn of 2028, when the Principal Theatre resumes operation, the Latino will be a venue for small-format concerts, monologues, and a cocktail bar. It will have a capacity of around 250 people.

The Teatro Latino is one of the four jewels hidden behind the facade designed by architect Daniel Molina, along with the Principal Theatre itself, the Cúpula Venus, and the legendary Jai Alai fronton. Batlle's and his team's job is to connect these spaces through an "interstitial route," that is, through stairs, elevators, and services located where there used to be a boarding house, a billiard room, and the Panam's nightclub. "The architectural intervention we are carrying out involves cleaning everything up and creating common spaces. People will enter from La Rambla and will find a large lobby, stairs, elevators, restrooms, spaces for having a drink... The route will be understandable, and from these spaces, you will be able to enter one, the other, the other, and the other; this couldn't be done before. Unlike now, the future Principal Theatre will be a cultural center where, once inside, you can say you are going to one place or another," points out Batlle. Architecturally, the result is like "a palimpsest of many eras," he adds.

The Teatre Principal has had many lives: the facade dates from the mid-19th century, but the current state of the spaces is the result of several fires and interventions by other architects. While the future services will be deliberately discreet, the other major milestone of the renovation will be sonorous: they have cut off a small part of the pediment, which ate into a part of the theater, to reopen the facade's balconies and create a three-story space that has been provisionally named Espai Rambla. "It will be like the Hall of Mirrors at the Liceu," says Batlle. Furthermore, this space will be crowned by a terrace that will be a viewpoint over the Rambla.

"The ambition of the project is maximum," assures the promoter, hotel entrepreneur Josep Maria Trénor, who, together with other partners, is making an investment of more than 50 million euros. The Teatre Principal, which was the first theater in Barcelona (its origin dates back to 1601), is owned by the Balañá family, and Trénor and his partners have it on surface rights for fifty years. Regarding the artistic advisors, Trénor is working with Jordi Sellas, Ventura Barba, and Julià Gómez Cora, and it is planned that the facility will have an artistic director.

Trénor was in talks with Cirque du Soleil to make them a creative residency, but he realized that their technical requirements are incompatible with how he wants to preserve the building. "It would have been a mistake," warns Trénor. Another key element of the work will be the creation of an interior passage with an urban vocation that will allow crossing the theater. It will be available during the theater's opening hours.

One of the last uses of the Teatre Principal, which is an Italian-style hall, was to host a cabaret show in 2013. The other parts had been disused for decades. It is difficult to watch where you are walking, because everything is a surprise. It can already be seen that the current access from the Rambla is maintained, but that the new one will be wider. Once inside the hall, one realizes that the art deco scales that adorn it are later than Molina's facade. From the inside, it is evident how the Jai Alai ate the upper amphitheater. The stage box is full of rubble, because they are cleaning before building the new one, which will be technologically updated. The hall will have a capacity of about 850 seats and the project is for musicals to be performed there. If it happens, the four spaces could simultaneously accommodate about 2,000 people.

A competition fronton in the heart of a theatre

The fronton is the work of Adolf Florensa and dates back to 1918. After a fire, the promoters of the Principal had to admit that the most important singers performed at the Liceu, so they decided to build a betting fronton. "Regarding the considerations of whether the Teatre Principal is patrimonially better or worse, we say that the building is listed and that we are very respectful. But these things are never clear, because it also depends on how the works are intervened. Heritage did not care about the fronton; on the other hand, we believe that the charm of the building is this mixture of differential spaces," says Batlle.

As the architect explains, the Venus Dome is like "the Pantheon on Barcelona's Rambla". There are still some pigeons, but they have already put concrete on the floor and there are surveys to see how they restore the stucco on the walls. Batlle's eagerness is to maintain the patina of the passage of time. All this recalls the ideas of emotional heritage that Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats applied a decade ago to Sala Beckett. "It is an important challenge, we do not want to turn the building into a cake by painting it too much – points out Batlle–. We want to clean it, but let the patina show. This is the difficulty of this type of restoration, but that's why we are here". The Venus Dome will be another multipurpose space. On the way down, you can see how the floor level will need to be raised so that the Espai Rambla corresponds to the balconies, and some spaces on the ground floor are lined with painted newspaper pages. They are full of old stories, which will soon make way for all that is to come.