The key issues of the project;
* The re-use of a hitorically significant building - Victoria Theatre- looking at the site as a social tomb.
* This poject is involved in a discussion about the role of abandoned and decaying architecture in city centres and their effect on identity loss.
* About renewing newcastle through the reintroduction of spaces of public pleasure, the dark nocturnal lost types of spaces.
* This project is concerned with activities of consumption, display, exchange and the architectural and urban spaces they take place in. This project is about the pursuit of pleasure and celebrating this pursuit in the urban environment.
* The project began with looking at the idea of disjunction: the disjuction between expected form and expected use.
* Looking at themes of pleasure and necessity- and theories of uslessness- radical uselessness being the necessity of architecture)
* The idea of disjuction formed the idea of a hotel & a nightclub- the theory of disjunction/ twoness; madness and the combinative- as Bernard Tsumi sayes: 'there must be regularity + fantasy, relationships + opositions.... & casual unexpected elements that vary the scene, confuse & cause tumult in the whole' (tsumi)
* The idea that the futile program of the nightclub (located in the remains of the old theatre) will disrupt the tightly bound program of the hotel.
* The hotel denotes a multiplicity of occupants, ages/ demographics- the twoness within the building type- the impersonel yet intimate spaces. (the typology of the hotel + the expperiential qualities are intended to be critiqued by this project)- this building type allows for absense followed by bustling presence, followed by absense again- interested in this dynamic of injecting people onto the site- The fantasy element of a hotel- the visitor is not required to act themselves- key difference to othe accommodation/ housing.
* The idea of the nightclub came from reading about carnivalesque methodologies- involving performance (public spectical) and joyful + grotesk consumption- these ideas are explored to invigorate the abandoned Victoria Theatre site-The word carnival comes from the word carnivor - incorporating a butcher/ meet marker aspcet into the nightclub- sacrifice- live animals.?.
* Further reading into the idea of the carnival led me to the idea of masquerade- conregations of people oftern took form of masquerades: visual displays of conspicuous consumption- masquerades were establised in venice in the form of carnivals--- and to the concept of......... BONDAGE + THE MASK
* Bondage- being a metaphor of order
* The Mask- a methaphor of seduction-------- both aspects of Tsumis "The pleasure of architecture"- 'the more numerous and sophisticated the restraints: the greater the pleasure' he writes.
* The BONDAGE relates to the complex urban environment and the re-use of the significant cultural artefact- also to the tightly bound order of the hotel.
* The MASK relates to pubic perception- the overall success of the project relys on the revealing and concealing of elements. The mask operates as a threshhold element- strong dark facades- slits and intregue.
* Playing with the idea of mirror- a surface that both masks + reflects
* Major concerns at a conceptual level are ideas of;
- Freedon + Containment
- Display + Concealment
- Desire + disgust................ which all suggest a tention betwwen what is hidden and what it revealed.
Butcher in the nightclub- the importance of looking at human and social origins in the persuit of pleasure- the idea of a carnival- being an act of consumption or originating from the consumption of meat. The location of the butcher to the street front highlights issues of masquerade- the publci interface that conceals what is happening inside the club.
The overall aspect of disjunction and the awkwardness that is created when two conflicting/ contradicting programes are put together e.g. when a butcher is placed inside a nightclub- is what this project is keen to explore. Also looking at social rituals- public space- Sunday- the theme of consumption is reflected in the consumption of the old theatre.- related to the body- looking at spaces of one-on-one nature. The female body is related to public space and written about in terms of being a threat to public decorum- Jane Rendels writing. Batailles figure of acephalus- and theory on the freedom of beheading - decapitation- humans revolt against ones own form- viewed as an act of liberation- 
idol 
.
