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Malmö Stadsteater’s refurbishment makes a former circus building legible from the street while giving performers far more ways to arrange the room. Haworth Tompkins, working with White Arkitekter, added a Kalendegatan entrance, café, courtyard pavilion and studio, then reorganized the 12-sided auditorium into a steeper horseshoe with a balcony. Reported capacity rose from 400 to 520 seats, sightlines improved, and a demountable proscenium with retractable bleachers allows end-stage, thrust and flat-floor setups.
Just as important, the work did not treat the Hippodromen’s old fabric as scenery to be hidden. The conical timber roof, ring of cast-iron columns and frescoes became visible again. The result is a theater that is more public and adaptable without erasing the evidence of its origins as a late-19th-century circus venue.
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From circus arena to Malmö’s theater home
The Hippodromen is a late-19th-century red-brick building designed by Theodor Wåhlin. Its original circus function produced an unusual 12-sided auditorium, a ring of cast-iron columns and a timber gridshell roof. Malmö Stadsteater has occupied the building since the mid-1990s; Chris Foges’s Architectural Record feature, published May 26, 2023, described that tenure as almost 30 years at the time of publication.
A previous conversion had made the building technically usable as a theater, but it concealed much of the historic shell. It also left little room for people to meet before a performance. Because the Hippodromen sits inside an urban block, the theater was easy to miss from the city streets. The new project addresses those urban and theatrical shortcomings together rather than treating them as separate upgrades.
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Haworth Tompkins led the refurbishment with White Arkitekter. Architectural Record characterized it as Haworth Tompkins’ first theater project outside the United Kingdom. The architects’ central move was to make arrival, gathering and performance part of one continuous sequence, while allowing the auditorium itself to change with each production.
How the redesign puts the theater on the street
A new entrance on Kalendegatan
The team took over a neighboring wig shop to create a principal entrance on Kalendegatan. That decision gives the theater a visible address instead of asking visitors to find a cultural venue buried inside a block. The municipal authority that owns the block agreed to the change.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe former shop became an all-day café as well as the front door. Opening the space beyond show times makes the theater useful to people who are not attending a performance and gives regular audiences a place to arrive early, meet and linger. Roger Watts, a director at Haworth Tompkins, explained the social purpose this way: “It’s especially important for theaters that produce new work to have that connection to the local population.” He added, “Front-of-house spaces that are visible and open to everyone help to build an audience.”
A former box office becomes a studio
An adjacent former box-office area was converted into a studio. It can host rehearsals, recitals and children’s workshops, extending the institution’s activity beyond the main auditorium. This is a practical addition as well as a public-facing one: smaller events no longer have to compete with the full production space, and education work can happen in a room designed for closer interaction.
The courtyard as a town square
A new glass-walled pavilion occupies the courtyard between the street entrance and the auditorium. The architects described it as a “town square.” Its transparent enclosure links the café to the theater and can accommodate informal performances, so the route into the building can itself become a place for activity rather than a corridor people simply pass through.
The pavilion also enlarges the foyer when a production needs more space. Beneath the auditorium’s seating rake, the foyer contains the bar and coat check. These functions are tucked into the building’s existing geometry, allowing the new public spaces to remain generous without adding a separate, oversized lobby volume.
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What changed inside the auditorium
From straight rows to a horseshoe and balcony
The former straight-row arrangement was replaced by a steeper-raked horseshoe configuration and a new balcony. Architectural Record reported an increase from 400 to 520 seats and noted improved sightlines. The horseshoe brings spectators around the playing area, while the rake and balcony use the tall volume more efficiently.
| Aspect | Before refurbishment | After refurbishment |
|---|---|---|
| Audience capacity | 400 seats | 520 seats |
| Seating geometry | Straight rows | Steeper-raked horseshoe with a balcony |
| Stage relationship | Less adaptable arrangement | Demountable proscenium, with end-stage, thrust or flat-floor options |
| Historic interior visibility | Much of the shell obscured by the earlier conversion | Timber roof, fresco ring and cast-iron columns brought back into view |
The capacity figure is the project description reported by Architectural Record in 2023, not a claim about every seating plan or current operating configuration. A production may remove or reposition seats when it uses the room in another format.
A room that can change with the production
A demountable proscenium allows the theater to move between conventional end-stage performance, thrust staging and a flat floor. Retractable bleachers make the audience layout adjustable, and routes between seating blocks support different ways for performers and spectators to occupy the room.
Watts described the reason for this range in production terms: “Theater is constantly evolving, and today’s directors and designers want the ability to shape spaces to suit the production.” He offered two contrasting possibilities: “One show might happen in the room with the audience, while another needs to be viewed through an aperture in the manner of a traditional theater.” The architecture therefore supports both intimacy and framed presentation without requiring a different building for each.
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Adaptability is not limited to moving scenery. Changing the rake, stage edge and routes through the seating can alter where attention is directed, how actors enter and leave, and whether the audience feels surrounded by the action or separated from it. The horseshoe provides a strong default arrangement, while the demountable elements keep that default from becoming a constraint.
How the project reveals the Hippodromen’s historic structure
The roof becomes part of the room
The new proscenium stops short of the conical timber roof rather than cutting across it. That gap keeps the roof’s geometry legible from the auditorium. Dense acoustic baffles that had hidden the structure were replaced by flat panels set between the rafters, exposing the rough-sawn timber and a ring of frescoes.
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This is a calibrated preservation strategy. The architects retained acoustic treatment, but changed its position and visual density so the historic roof could be read. The roof is not reconstructed as a museum display; it remains an active part of a working theater while regaining its presence above the audience.
Columns, frescoes and walls
The original cast-iron columns were painted deep red again, strengthening the visual continuity around the room. The walls were lined in slatted wood, which adds acoustic absorption and a contemporary layer without covering every trace of the old construction. The fresco ring remains visible above, where it can register as part of the building’s identity rather than as a detail discovered only on a tour.
Watts identified the danger the project was trying to avoid: “Quite often the quirks and eccentricities of places like that are destroyed in pursuit of flexibility.” At the Hippodromen, flexibility is inserted around the existing character. The movable proscenium and bleachers provide changeable theater infrastructure, while the roof, columns and frescoes supply a fixed sense of place.
Material choices make the new spaces feel civic, not exclusive
The palette combines durable contemporary finishes with references to the building’s industrial and theatrical past. Glazed tilework and copper countertops appear in the public areas. Pale wood furniture and colored pendant lights make the café and foyer feel informal, while dark wood floors and plywood paneling give the spaces a robust, workshop-like quality.
Exposed timber beams connect the new construction to the recovered roof. Steel connections are left visible and painted deep oxblood red, echoing the restored columns. The combination is deliberately unpretentious: it makes structure and joinery readable instead of hiding them behind a uniformly polished interior.
Watts called the approach “unpretentious and democratic.” That description fits the sequence from sidewalk to auditorium. Visitors encounter a café that operates during the day, a transparent courtyard room that can host activity, and a foyer organized around practical amenities before reaching the performance space. The theater’s social threshold is widened without turning the historic building into a themed attraction.
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Why the changes matter to audiences and artists
For the city
The old theater’s position inside an urban block made it visually absent. A street entrance and café give Malmö Stadsteater a recognizable public face and invite casual use. The courtyard pavilion extends that invitation inward, providing a place where an informal event can be seen from circulation routes rather than hidden behind a ticket barrier.
The studio adds another layer of access. Rehearsals, recitals and children’s workshops can occur in a dedicated room, making the institution’s work more visible and distributing activity across the building instead of concentrating it in evening performances.
For audiences
The reported increase from 400 to 520 seats creates more capacity in the principal room, while the steeper rake and horseshoe improve the visual relationship to the stage. The bar and coat check beneath the seating rake keep front-of-house functions close to the auditorium and help the foyer operate efficiently during busy arrivals and intervals.
Because seating blocks can be separated by routes and bleachers can retract, the audience’s position is not permanently prescribed. One production may place spectators around the action; another may restore a more conventional framed view. The building can offer those experiences without sacrificing the recovered roof overhead.
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For directors and designers
The demountable proscenium is the key technical instrument. It can establish an aperture for a traditional theater picture, open the room for thrust staging, or disappear in favor of a flat floor. Retractable seating and alternative circulation paths make those choices operational rather than merely conceptual.
The arrangement also acknowledges that new work often needs to test the boundary between stage and auditorium. A flexible room can support that experimentation while preserving a stable architectural identity, which is the balance the refurbishment sets out to achieve.
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The project’s central lesson: flexibility without erasure
Adaptive theater projects often face a false choice. They can preserve a historic interior so carefully that contemporary productions become difficult, or they can install enough technical equipment to make the old building almost unreadable. The Hippodromen refurbishment takes a third route.
Its new elements are concentrated where they solve current problems: the street entrance repairs the building’s urban visibility; the café, pavilion and studio create places to gather and work; the horseshoe, balcony, proscenium and bleachers expand theatrical options. Meanwhile, the roof, frescoes and columns are not treated as obstacles. They are exposed, recolored or framed so that the original circus architecture remains an active visual and spatial reference.
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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →That pairing gives Malmö Stadsteater a clearer civic role and a more versatile stage. The building can welcome people who are not yet regular theatergoers, support different scales of activity, and adapt its audience relationship from one production to the next while retaining the eccentric proportions that made the Hippodromen distinctive.
What is documented—and what is not
The renovation details, quoted statements and capacity figures above come from Chris Foges’s Architectural Record feature, published May 26, 2023. The feature documents the design intent and reported changes to the building. It does not establish current schedules, ticketing, visitor access rules or the operating status of every room. Those details should be confirmed directly with Malmö Stadsteater before planning a visit.
Conclusion
Haworth Tompkins and White Arkitekter made Malmö Stadsteater more visible by opening it to Kalendegatan and more adaptable by rebuilding the auditorium around movable performance relationships. The 520-seat horseshoe, balcony, demountable proscenium and retractable bleachers answer present-day theatrical needs. The exposed timber gridshell, frescoes and red-painted cast iron ensure that the former circus hall still reads as the Hippodromen. Its renewal succeeds because public welcome, technical flexibility and historic character are designed as one project.
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