A Floating Theater City in the Metaverse

The world’s first Sphinx Meta Theater Festival has invited Mr. Liu Haowei to lead CAA architects in designing a theatrical city in the Metaverse world, called the Dionysus Theater. The project has been developed and built jointly by META CAALAB and Baidu's technical team, and is now available on China's largest metaverse platform, Baidu XIRANG.

"Like a floating living body, the Dionysus Theater is full of energy, growing and iterating continuously in a dynamic way.” - Liu Haowei

Dionysus, the god of wine, symbolized joy, sensuality and ritual in ancient Greek mythology, and ruled human drama culture. The spirit of Dionysus is the vitality and creativity that flourishes when man and nature are united. It has long been regarded as the source of theatre in ancient Greek period.

The META CAALAB team of CAA architects deconstructed classical and avant-garde drama through two-way interpretation, resulting in the creation of a futuristic, technological, and surreal city of theater in the metaverse, known as the "Dionysian Theater."

Different from the single form of traditional theater space, the spatial system of the entire building is based on the decentralized underlying logic of the Metaverse, and consists of three separate and organically connected main forms of different scales.

The atrium where the three living bodies are about to intersect forms a fantastic place of pilgrimage for drama, and also becomes the main entrance of the entire theatre city, just like the transportation system of the central nervous system of the living body connects the main body in all dimensions.

The intention of the whole design strongly expresses the cultural spirit of theatre and architectural art, and will become an important place for theatre culture in the metaverse world, creating a brand new and imaginative vanguard stage for audiences and users.

Design and Development: CAA Architects | META CAALAB
Lead Architect: Liu Haowei
Project Architect (Design and Technology): Ye Wenjie
Design Team: Li Shuyao, Lu Jingli
Cooperative Development Technical Team: Baidu XIRANG