Fifteen years ago, I sat with blueprints spread across my desk — a perfect full-scale replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, but made not from timber or stone, but from Layer scaffolding.
Not a miniature model. Not a digital rendering. A real, buildable construction designed to be set up on empty lots, city centers, festival grounds. Portable, circular, raw and honest — true to the spirit of the original.
I never built it.
But that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.
An Idea Born from Both Construction and Culture
I’ve always lived at the intersection of engineering and art. Sometimes those worlds collide in beautiful ways.
Layer scaffolding — the modular system of frames, braces and locking rings — is usually reserved for industrial work, facade restoration or construction. But I saw something else. I saw a structural language capable of holding stories.
My vision was simple in essence but ambitious in scale:
a fully functional, full-size, touring Globe Theatre, with modern methods and materials. A theater that could be erected temporarily — without foundations, without permits, without compromise.
I imagined the audience standing in a circle, the daylight pouring in from above, the actors within arm’s reach. Just as it was in London, 1599.
Full-Scale Construction Using Layer Scaffolding
The Layer system was at the heart of the concept. It’s robust, flexible, and designed for rapid assembly and teardown.
I designed the entire theater in modules:
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Three levels of audience galleries, with standing space closest to the stage — just like the original.
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A thrust stage, built of plywood on a strong modular frame.
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Portals and bridges, designed with horizontal and diagonal connectors.
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An open roof, with selective fabric coverage for rain, preserving the open-air feeling.
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A backstage area, with stairs, crew space and integrated lighting and audio structures.
All scaled precisely — 20 meters in diameter, nearly 9 meters tall. The whole structure was engineered on paper to be fully safe and transportable.
A Theater Built from What We Already Have
This wasn’t about recreating history for nostalgia’s sake. It was about proposing a new kind of cultural infrastructure — lightweight, mobile, and grounded in available resources.
Scaffolding isn’t just for buildings under construction. It can also carry stories. It can hold voices, movement, presence.
I imagined a system where theater could come to the people, not the other way around. Where a parking lot could become a performance space. Where culture could be as flexible and alive as a touring circus.
Why It Was Never Built
I pitched the concept to municipalities, theaters, touring companies, festivals.
People loved the idea. They said it was “brilliant,” “bold,” even “revolutionary.”
But no one said yes.
It was “too different,” “too unfamiliar,” “too risky.” Never mind that the structure was technically sound, the budget realistic, and the material already available in most cities.
So it remained just that — a design. A sketch. An unrealized possibility.
What If It Had Been Built?
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It could have traveled from Malmö to Sofia, from Kiruna to Bansko.
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It could have hosted performances, debates, concerts, and civic dialogue.
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It could have brought theater to places where no one ever thought of seeing a play.
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It could have shown that culture doesn’t require velvet seats and marble foyers — just intention, creativity, and access.
Above all, it could have invited a new kind of audience — one not shaped by tradition, but by curiosity.
An Idea That Still Lives
Even now, I carry the theater with me. I see it when I look at empty city lots, stacked scaffolding, forgotten places.
It wasn’t a failure. It was a vision ahead of its time. One that proved you don’t need a building permit to build a better cultural future — just imagination and courage.
Rethinking the Cultural Institution
We live in a time when traditional institutions struggle with attendance, relevance, and rigidity.
Maybe the solution isn’t to renovate, but to mobilize.
Maybe culture’s next evolution isn’t digital — but physical and flexible.
The Globe I designed was not just a nostalgic gesture — it was a radical proposal for a democratized theater. For taking storytelling back into the street, the market square, the festival, the school yard.
To Anyone Who Wants to Build Something Like This
If you're reading this and have a similar vision — don’t wait. Start sketching. Calculate. Dream big and build modular.
You don’t need approval to build a movement.
Ideas that aren’t realized immediately can still change the future. They become seeds. Carried by time and conversation until the moment is right.
Conclusion: A Theater Made of Steel, Filled with Life
My full-scale Globe Theatre, designed in Layer scaffolding, was never built.
But it exists. In my mind. In every sketch. In every conversation.
And maybe someday, on a field somewhere in Europe, it will be built.
A circle of steel, a stage at its heart, an audience surrounding it — raw, awake, alive.
When that happens, I’ll be there. Not on stage, but among the crowd.
Smiling. Applauding.
Because some stories are worth building — even if they begin as scaffolding.
By Chris...
All pictures rights by Christer Berggren ©