About Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen
On October 28, 1944, a V1 bomb struck Bonte Mantelstraat in Antwerp, resulting in 71 fatalities and 80 injuries. The surrounding area suffered extensive damage. In 1969, Bonte Mantelstraat and nearby Kanonstraat were demolished to make way for Theaterplein, where the city planned to build the new Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen.
The catalyst for the project was a relatively minor fire in one of the cellars of the Bourla Theatre in 1958. Just three years earlier, a cinema fire in Sclessin near Liège had claimed 39 lives. In response, the City of Antwerp closed several of its theaters, including the Bourla, introduced stricter fire safety regulations, and unanimously decided to build a new cultural center near the former Bonte Mantelstraat. The venue would house the Royal Dutch Theatre (KNS), the Royal Youth Theatre (KJT, now Het Paleis), the Reizend Volkstheater (RVT), and the renowned Studio Herman Teirlinck drama school. Entire city blocks disappeared, and the city hoped to complete a modernist, transparent building by 1965 at a cost of 6.5 million Belgian francs. In reality, construction only began in 1968 and continued for 12 years under three different architects.
When the building finally opened in 1980 and became home to the KNS, KJT, and the ballet school, it quickly faced criticism. Antwerp residents nicknamed it “the bunker,” while artists found it far too large for such a limited audience capacity. Due to the lengthy construction period, a venue had emerged that reflected the Eastern European architectural style popular during the post-war reconstruction era: large rectangular concrete buildings surrounding expansive public squares. Despite its imposing scale, the main auditorium could seat only 800 visitors.
In 1974, a monumental artwork by stained-glass artist Herman Wauters was incorporated into the building’s western façade. This glass-in-concrete artwork measures 32 meters long and 9 meters high. It remains largely unknown because it was later covered from the inside. The cubist interior walls of the foyers and the handrails were created by the Decoene workshop from Kortrijk, renowned for successfully combining craftsmanship, artistic quality, and commercial expertise.
1998: From 800 to 2,060 Seats
In the early 1990s, the City of Antwerp, led by Mayor Bob Cools, decided to transform the main auditorium from 800 to 2,060 seats. As a result, the KNS—now Toneelhuis—returned to the Bourla Theatre, leaving Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen vacant.In 1994, Geert Allaert of Flanders Eventhall and its subsidiary Antwerps Muziek Theater nv, now Music Hall, received the concession to use parts of the venue. Four years later, the building finally found its true purpose through a major renovation. The roof was removed and rebuilt, increasing the capacity of the main auditorium to 2,060 seats. Combined with a mega-stage (40 × 40 meters, 82 fly bars, two side stages, extensive backstage facilities, loading and unloading docks, elevators, and a revolving stage), Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen became the largest theater with a fly tower in Flanders, attracting major musicals and ballet productions.
Before 1998, the venue welcomed approximately 10,000 visitors per year for KNS productions. From 1998 onward, attendance exceeded 200,000 visitors annually, with peaks of 400,000 during productions such as Les Misérables (382,000 visitors in nine months, including one month of sold-out French-language performances) and The Phantom of the Opera (412,000 visitors over eleven months).
On January 6, 2014, be•at (then Sportpaleis Group) took over the day-to-day management of Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen and Capitole Gent from Music Hall. Earlier, on October 1, 2013, Sportpaleis Group had also taken over the operation of Forest National. The new operator broadened the venue’s programming and further strengthened its position as one of Belgium’s leading theaters.
