Midtconsult

Once upon a time, movie stars such as Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and Sophia Loren occupied the high-ceilinged premises. Today, the former Vest Teatret cinema in Brabrand, a suburb of Aarhus, has been converted into a modern office building with its own unique atmosphere.

Midtconsult domiciled in refurbished cinema

Once upon a time, movie stars such as Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and Sophia Loren occupied the high-ceilinged premises. Today, the former Vest Teatret cinema in Brabrand, a suburb of Aarhus, has been converted into a modern office building with its own unique atmosphere. Now it is employees at the engineering company Midtconsult who play the principal roles in the stunning rooms.

Vest Teatret was originally built in 1957, and designed by two young architects, Knud Blach Petersen and Knud Friis. The relatively modest building is elegantly constructed with a low transparent entrance façade facing Silkeborgvej. Behind it, the high cinema auditorium rises up, a compact yellow brick structure.

The cinema closed in 1983 and was subsequently used for various purposes. Now it has been given a new lease of life. Today, the property developer Byggeselskab Olav de Linde owns the building, although Midtconsult had a big say in its refurbishment. In particular, it was vitally important to preserve something of the building’s soul and many of its fine details without compromising functionality.

Morten Prinds, a partner at Midtconsult, is very enthusiastic about his company’s new surroundings: “It was definitely a challenge to renovate and modernise the rooms while preserving the building’s original look and design as a cinema. For example, we have kept the brown perforated bricks in the actual auditorium because they are an important part of the building’s history. It was also necessary to partition the room, but by using glass sections it has been possible to retain a clear sense of the auditorium’s original size.”

“From a purely acoustic point of view, it has been a fascinating project which has been solved with excellent results. The reverberation times are close to perfect in the various rooms. We decided to use white Troldtekt panels on most of the ceiling surfaces, as it is a material that goes well with our idea of a slightly raw and robust interior. It is also an inexpensive product, and we have even been able to reuse some of the existing panels which have just been repainted.”