Scala's Next Act
Redefining Youth Engagement in Milan’s Opera Scene
J.E. Tjon Kie Sim (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
B. Groothuijse – Mentor (TU Delft - Berlage)
M. Finagina – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / A)
J.A.A. Woertman – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
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Abstract
Opera faces a pressing challenge: engaging younger generations. As part of the Complex Projects Milan studio, this project envisions the historic site of Teatro alla Scala as a blank canvas, focusing on youth engagement in order to identify how opera houses can better resonate with younger audiences through design. These findings informed a reimagined program that balances traditional and experimental performance spaces.
In line with the overall concept, the institution itself is reframed as “Scala” a concise, contemporary identity designed to appeal to emerging generations and to signal an open, inclusive approach to cultural events. The project crafts a new architectural narrative, one that honours memory and ritual beneath the surface while projecting a vibrant, youth-focused future above.
The proposal transforms the former Teatro alla Scala’s site into a sequence of performance spaces that balance lost traditions with experimental performances. By conceiving the piazza as an open stage and weaving together floating and sunken venues, from the hovering Rolex Hall and sunken Amphitheatre to the transparent Rehearsal Passage, the Foyer, Performance Patio, and hidden Classical Hall, the design both honours Milan’s operatic heritage and blurs boundaries between artist and audience. Together, these spaces choreograph a journey through voids and masses, tradition and experimentation, and public and hidden, redefining youth engagement in Milan’s opera scene.