A team comprised of Chinese architects Hang Guo and Shanshan Li have used the history of theatre and circus to drive their proposal for a new Moscow Circus School. The design, dubbed Dome and Circus, was developed for the recent Architectural Competition Concours d'Architecture (AC-CA) competition, which encouraged participants to consider the ways in which their design could generate discussion about the relationship between architecture and culture.  

Courtesy of Hang Guo and Shanshan Li

A team comprised of Chinese architects Hang Guo and Shanshan Li have used the history of theatre and circus to drive their proposal for a new Moscow Circus School. The design, dubbed Dome and Circus, was developed for the recent Architectural Competition Concours d'Architecture (AC-CA) competition, which encouraged participants to consider the ways in which their design could generate discussion about the relationship between architecture and culture.  Dome and Circus respond to this criteria by reinterpreting ancient theatrical spaces, such as the Pantheon or ancient Greek outdoor theatres, into a contemporary cultural arena. The "theme and prototype" of the project became the dome, and it is deployed across the project in "multiple and continuous" ways.
Courtesy of Hang Guo and Shanshan Li

By interlacing the once separate domes, a sequence of spaces was created with blurred boundaries to one another. Above the domes lies a...